A tale of islands and wind shadows

“Last night was rather peaceful with around fifteen knots of breeze on flat seas. We’ve been fairly quick, which has enabled us to steal a bit of a march on our closest rivals, so that’s pretty good”, explained Martin Le Pape, the duo now boasting a lead of around twenty miles in relation to the skippers of Fortinet – Bestwestern and Maître CoQ as they prepare to negotiate the Cape Verde archipelago, which was around just fifty miles away at midday. “Once again we’re going to have to find the right way to avoid the wind shadows created by the islands”, commented the co-skipper of Prysmian Group, still lying in 7th place within the IMOCA fleet in the Transat Jacques Vabre. In reality, there are numerous options up for grabs with ten main islands and eight islets that can be traversed, but we can count on the duo to find the best way through in the run-up to their 10th day at sea. So how do you cope with being away from home? “In truth, we’re never far away from our loved ones, because we’re always thinking about them. We try to stay connected to them via regular phone calls, as well as spending quality time with them before the start, moments we can then cherish in our mind and in our heart. As such, we never feel very far from home!” explained Giancarlo Pedote.