Nicolas d’Estais (Café Joyeux):
" Honestly, when you see the landscapes and the names of the islands you’re passing, you realise how lucky we are to be here. I’m now above 61° North, east of the Faroe Islands, and you can really feel that you’re entering the High North. Last night it stayed light all night long. Not permanent sunshine, but an incredible glow, a bit like moonlight that never fades away. Every time I woke up from a nap, it was still daylight even though it was two or three in the morning. It was quite magical. Yesterday, I passed very close to the Flannan Isles. I’d never heard of them before, but they were magnificent: a tiny island with its lighthouse, grasslands and birds everywhere. You really travel on a race like this. Every stretch of land I see makes me want to stop. The Hebrides, the Faroes, all these archipelagos carved by fjords... Even the little I’ve seen makes me want to come back and spend weeks exploring them. Sometimes I think I chose the wrong profession and should have become an explorer instead! From a strategic point of view, ever since the north of Ireland my idea has been to stay relatively far east in order to round the low-pressure system blocking our route via its eastern side and then its northern flank. The goal is to sail as much of the route as possible on a reaching angle all the way to the Arctic Circle. For a while, the forecasts were no longer particularly favourable to that scenario, but since yesterday it has become interesting again. The gamble is starting to pay off and I’m pretty pleased with it. If all goes well, I should cross the Arctic Circle tomorrow around midday. After that, it remains a somewhat abstract line on a chart. It’s not really the number that matters, but everything you experience around it. Between the landscapes, the light that never disappears and this feeling of being at the end of the world, I already feel as though I’m in the High North. It’s a passage that I’m enjoying every single moment of.”
Ambrogio Beccaria (Allagrande Mapei):
"My spirits are actually pretty good, surprisingly enough, even though I’m almost 1,000 miles behind Sam Goodchild. But I’ve completely changed my approach. I’ve had quite a few problems since the start and my objectives have evolved. Deep down, I already had this idea in the back of my mind: to put together a solid race, finish what is still a very demanding event and continue discovering what solo IMOCA offshore racing is really all about. I still have a lot of boxes to tick.So despite the difficulties, morale remains high. Unlike the leaders, we chose to pass west of the Faroe Islands. The low-pressure system gradually shifted eastwards, which allowed us, as we say, to ‘cut a corner’ a little. The risk, of course, was getting trapped in the light winds. Francesca stayed a little closer to the islands; perhaps she was tempted by the local scenery! (laughs) For now, I find it difficult to fully appreciate what the Arctic Circle represents because I haven’t crossed it yet. What really strikes me, though, is the atmosphere. Around the Faroes, it almost felt like summer was still lingering. Now everything has changed. We’re sailing through thick, icy fog. At one point, I even closed up the boat and started the engine simply to warm myself up because I couldn’t seem to get warm again. Fortunately, a few manoeuvres are usually enough to get the machine running again! (laughs) After the Faroes, we also encountered very unstable and fairly demanding conditions. In the space of a few hours, I went from the J0 to the J2, put in a reef, changed to the J3, back to the J2, shook the reef out again, tacked several times... It was very physical, but at least it warmed me up! What’s strange up here is the light. Ever since we entered this permanent fog, there have been almost no shadows and hardly any contrast. Everything feels flat. The days all look the same. You get the impression of being somewhere outside of time. It’s not necessarily very pleasant, but it’s certainly a unique feeling.”
