A ridge of high pressure, producing only light winds, seemed set to slow the victor elect, delaying his arrival until probably Sunday afternoon. The latest ETA, (at 1800hrs) is now reckoned to be between 1300hrs and 1800hrs GMT Sunday.

Foncia has slowed this afternoon, making 8.3 knots, while tens of thousands of Vendée Globe fans assemble in Les Sables d’Olonne, expecting to enjoy the arrival of the winning, record breaking skipper when he passes down the legendary canal to a hero’s welcome.

“ Michel is my hero and has sailed like a god and that inspires us all” Sam Davies remarked on today’s radio broadcast whose Roxy is the ex-PRB, Michel Desjoyeaux’s boat, which won in 2001 and then again in 2005 with Vincent Riou. The Roxy skipper has benefited hugely from training at Port la Foret along with Desjoyeaux.

Questioned during today’s radio session, the skippers all paid their tributes to the exceptional achievement by the skipper of Foncia.

“ He had an almost perfect race.  He has what makes a great champion, like Federer, Tiger Woods or Sébastien Loeb. Those that everyone looks forward to seeing before an event and who never disappoint.”   Said Armel Le Cléac’h speaking from his location bang in the middle of the Azores high, where he was stuck doing no more than 3 knots.  Even his old friend and sparring partner Roland Jourdain, in spite of his tricky situation had some words of praise:

“This was the Desjoyeaux Vendée. There was Mich’ and then all the others.  He was above everyone else. He is in peak form.”

The champion elect has show remarkable dedication and focus, enduring a level of austerity for more than 80 days that most skippers would not choose. His attention to detail and innovations, his great technical mind set him apart. But like other great dominant champions, cool and perhaps considered aloof, not all his rivals warm wholeheartedly to his approach:

Expanding on a question at today’s skippers radio session Marc Guillemot concluded “ Michel Desjoyeaux doesn’t irritate me.  That’s not what I mean. He is a great champion and has put in a remarkable performance. There’s nothing you can really say about it.  It’s just that when Golding lost his mast, he was very detached about it.  And when he came back in the race and overtook us, it was as if he was asking us if we were having a nice cruise.  I just found that a bit hard.  I don’t know if he realises that.  My criticism is that sometimes he doesn’t show any warmth or any emotion.  He isn’t really attentive to others.  His comments are sometimes a bit difficult to accept.  I think he can be a bit pretentious.”

Meanwhile Roland Jourdain has less than 190 miles to sail now to reach the haven of the Azores where he will inspect the damage to his keel and consider the weather prospects but he, again, re-iterated that his safety comes first and foremost and he will not compromise himself or his boat in his quest to finish this Vendée Globe.

Brian Thompson crossed the Equator at 0020 GMT . Bahrain Team Pindar became the sixth boat to enter the Northern Hemisphere, 10 days 19 hours and 5 minutes after Michel Desjoyeaux. Dee Caffari should reach the Equator tomorrow but has had a painfully slow time in the Doldrums, making just 2.2 knots while Brian Thompson has expanded his lead again over her to 168 miles.

Thompson’s passage from Cape Horn to the Equator is the second quickest so far this race, 17 hours slower than the time taken by Desjoyeaux. In effect their times could be considered comparable since the British skipper turned back to shelter in the lee of the Island de Los Estados after Cape Horn.

Sam Davies, GBR, (Roxy): “ Roxy and Safran are quite well matched at the moment and I am doing everything I can to stay ahead of him for as long as possible, but it is great to have someone not far behind you giving you a push and giving you motivation. But there is a limit and you can’t push any harder than the maximum speed of your boat, and so if I put more sail up then I will only go slower, so at the moment it is only about maximising the potential, making sure the sail trim is perfect and that the settings for the autopilot mean that the pilot steers the boat nicely through the waves. “

On Mich Desj:

“He is my hero. I think he is an amazing sailor and has been great with me in this race he has been in touch by e-mail from time to time in this race and has been one of my biggest encounragers and motivators with his little messages which he has been sending to me during the race.”

“He is not just a sailing machine but he has got a bit of heart there and has been following everyone in this race.”

On why Roxy is one of the four or five boats remaining which is still capable of being pushed at 100%:

“ I think there are a lot of reasons and the luck factor is one of them. But there is the fact that this boat has done probably more miles than any other boat in the fleet and I have done a lot of miles with it. I have had my fair share of breakages but actually I have been lucky enough to have had the boat for long enough that I have been sailing her before and so my breakages have actually been in training, in training runs and so on, before this race. So I could prepare and repair and also take spares on board for things that I thought would break and that I would need to replace. And so preparation has been a key to this race and I have a great team, who have prepared this boat with all their hearts, and that is a big help, to be able to have the time to do that, to prepare.

After that you obviously have to be careful and some people push harder than others, that is down to taking risks, and knowing whether you are going to be lucky or not.”

Brian Thompson, GBR, (Bahrain Team Pindar): “I had a long night, trying to escape the Doldrums, and I am almost there. It is very cloudy but I have not a squall for an hour or two. I am at 2 north, but it has gone on for a long time now. I have had squalls since Fernando de Noronha which is like 330 miles ago, so it has been pretty slow for a long time.”

“Bahrain Team Pindar crossed the Equator for the second time last night. I opened a little bottle of Champagne Mumm and offered most of it to Neptune, in thanks for a safe passage around the bottom of the world.”

On making the second quickest passage up the South Atlantic, Cape Horn to the Equator after Mich Desj:

“That is brilliant. I am sure that I was turned around for longer than 17 hours. It was the early afternoon when I turned around and then it was the early afternoon the next day when I left. That is pretty good, but I feel very lucky to have such good weather, even if it has been so slow these last few days, these last 330 miles. But apart from that I have had a dream run up the South Atlantic.”

“Yesterday I did not do any fixing and just concentrated on the sailing. I think that every hour that you can get out of the Doldrums quicker is probably worth three hours earlier into Les Sables, you can go three times as fast, once you are out. I did a lot of tacking, trimming and do lots of manoeuvres. But that was the worst bit of the Doldrums.”

Michel Desjoyeaux (Foncia): “It’s not just the final day of January, but my final day of the race!  Since the middle of the night, the wind has eased off, so my progress has just slowed, but I’m still hoping to get back to Les Sables d'Olonne. I’ve got around fifteen knots of wind and the seas are quite heavy with the swell building.  So the boat is surfing along occasionally, but then she stops.. and off she goes again.  Since early this morning, I’ve been racing with a cargo vessel probably heading to La Rochelle.  I’m just enjoying myself in this fine weather, which is a nice way to finish off a round the world voyage.  I think it’s going to be a rude awakening tomorrow after being alone for so long on my boat to find myself in the middle of thousands of people.  I’m managing more or less to stay on course for Les Sables d'Olonne and as the wind is easing, I’m going to have to hoist some more sail.  During the night as I was crossing the shipping lane from Spain up past Brittany I found a great way of identifying the boat and I can see their name and destination and size.  You can select a safety area around the boat and I set it for ten miles, so each time a ship comes into that radius I get an alarm signal in my ear. When I set out in this Vendee Globe, there were fewer unknown factors, but I had some clear ambitions. When you keep at it, you can be rewarded... I tackled this race much more serenely, but the way the race went and the performance, it was more impressive.  Looking at what has happened, I think I’ve done a good job.  I felt a lot less stress and tiredness than eight years ago.  I think in the end, I wanted it more and you can see the result for yourself.  To finish this Vendée Globe, I’ll be spending some time at the helm.  Tomorrow for the finish, I’ll be cleaned up and shaved.  I need to get to a barber this afternoon, as I’m looking a bit scruffy. I hope that tomorrow there will be even more people there than last time.  I’ve been working on my ETA for two months to make sure it would be during the day on a Sunday!  Bring along everything you can for a party and we’ll have some fun together!» 

Roland Jourdain, (Veolia Environnement):  It’s not too bad, as long as the seas don’t get too rough. Yesterday was perfect, as it was like being on a big dinghy.  All I needed was the trapeze harness and it would have taken me back to my days at sailing school.  The worrying thing is that you don’t have much control over the movements of the boat.  The problem is going to be the breakers, as for the moment she has been stable enough, but with a breaker… If the wind gets up I’m going to have to let the boat run, but the goal was to head to the Azores, to the island of Sao Miguel, so that means sailing closer to the wind.  The wind will be veering north-westerly, so it’s going to be hard over the next 24 hours before we reach another ridge of high pressure. That’s going to be the big test to see whether I can control the situation.  The priority will remain my safety and the safety of the boat, so I’m not going to play the fool.  If the forecast comes up with reasonable conditions for a week, that will be fine.  If we’re looking at upwind sailing, that means we’ll have to examine the situation.  As my fishermen friends say, a good sailor is a sailor who makes it to port. Last night, I got a little rest in short stretches with the alarm on.  I have my safety gear at my side, ready to act if necessary.  I’m sleeping with the door shut, but it’s not exactly the most restful sleep.  The circumstances aren’t really apt for me to express my joy about Mich, but he’s done a wonderful job.  This has been the Desjoyeaux Vendée.  There was Mich and then there were the others in the race.  I did my best behind him, but Mich you were in peak form.”