Vendée Globe
Sam Davies ‘Super Proud of Miranda’
Sam Davies and Isabelle Joschke are completing their solo round the world missions together, out of the race. With their compromised boats which need looking after, they have slowed down to let a big low pass in front of them. Sam spoke to Race HQ this morning and is super proud of her friend Miranda Merron who she first sailed with more than 20 years ago….
I am super happy for my friend Miranda. I never doubted that she would make it, she is a great sailor. Her project with Halvard is really cool. They don’t have a lot of money, but they’ve managed to do something amazing. Miranda’s strength lies in knowing her boat inside out despite the short time she had before setting out. I am very happy and proud for her. She had a wonderful race. I loved sharing it with her. We have a WhatsApp group with our Jules Verne Trophy attempt crew of 1998, and even though it was over 20 years ago, they are there for us every day. For Miranda’s finish they all commented on the finish Live by sending us loads of pictures and chat. And so I more or less had the live experience thanks to them. She looked so happy and that didn’t surprise me as the past few weeks have not been easy and I felt she was very stressed so it was great to see her relaxed and happy and de-stressed yesterday. The release at the end of the race is impressive. It happens to me almost every race. It’s part of that experience. It shows that the body is capable of pushing to new limits and when you arrive and don’t need to take care of the boat anymore, everything just goes slack. These boats are powerful and physical so that’s okay. ”
Ari Huusela: “I feel like this is the never ending story.’
Speaking from on board the famous STARK Imoca this morning Finnish skipper Ari Huusela now has the 250 nautical miles wide ridge of high pressure to negotiate before the Azores, and today he will pass under the 2000 nautical miles to the finish. He is starting to find the continually changing ETA a bit frustrating but he says…… “Life is good, as always I am super happy, I am approaching the high pressure zone of light winds and it is quite wide and complicated and so I will struggle through it. I have 11 kts of wind and I am doing 11kts and so it is quite OK right now. Hopefully I will keep a small bit of wind, but I have been following Alexia, she is going quite well and has been going seven knots or something so it is fine right now.
‘A few years ago I never thought I could be at the start and finish of this race’ Manu Cousin
Man Cousin who is due to finish tomorrow morning, spoke on the radio call recently”It’s going better this morning. It’s not very relaxing because there are still two fairly big depressions to get through so I have to remain cautious and vigilant because the weather is unsettled, there are a lot of squalls. I am being careful, but I feel better than 2-3 days ago when I was still quite stressed about a lot of things. Now I try to take advantage of these final days of racing. I am trying to relive in my head what I have managed to do, like running it back as a film.
