Michel Desjoyeaux (Foncia) and Bernard Stamm (Cheminées Poujoulat) do not appear to be in for favourable weather in the coming days. For the winner of the 2001 Vendée Globe, who is sailing off Porto this morning, the northerly wind is down to 10 knots and he is going to have to wait for it to back NE'ly before it strengthens to 20 knots: the white monohull already lost thirty miles during the night and this is likely to increase to 100 miles by this evening (in relation to his 450 mile deficit when he set sail again from Les Sables d’Olonne). As for Bernard Stamm, he faces even less favourable conditions… Calm weather in the Bay of Biscay with often only just five knots of wind and rarely more than ten until Cape Finisterre! After a deficit of 940 miles on restarting from Les Sables d’Olonne this morning, he could see himself some 1500 miles behind this weekend… However, everyone, will be slowing down in the Doldrums early next week and there will fortunately for these two sailors some compression.

7h01 : «A quiet night. We're off. The big balloon sail has been up since yesterday afternoon, and we're sailing along nicely, no fantastic surfing yet and the Azores high is losing strength. Had to do a lot of gybes during the night to stay in the strip of wind at 10° west, with difficulty reaching ten knots. The moon is still up and the sun is coming up, hardly any clouds, which is quite rare, so I'm taking advantage of that! A nice day for those ashore.» E-mail from Michel Desjoyeaux (Foncia)

3h11:

This is not a race for people, who like to sleep! A busy night getting around the high, which decided to move in over me. A lot of manoeuvres to try to position Temenos on the right trajectory for the trade winds. All's well on board. The last of the fresh spaghetti have gone. I've exceeded my daily dose of coffee again... See you soon. » Dominique Wavre (Temenos II )

Harry McGougan,  Alex Thomson Racing’s Operations Director explained what they saw when Hugo Boss  was lifted this afternoon. “There is a transverse crack that runs through the outer and inner skin of the boat. Having now lifted the boat out of the water we can see the underneath of the boat and the full extent of the damage. The crack extends 5 metres to almost the centreline.  The unidirectional fibres that makes up the outside layer of the boat have peeled off from the start of the crack to the back of the boat.”

McGougan explained what the team need to achieve. “In the time scale available to us to restart the race we would have to do a full structural survey, put together a full repair plan and then put a team together the size of which we had for the repair three weeks ago.“

A decision will be made tomorrow on the best way forward.

“At the moment there is no definite reason why this has happened but there is a strong possibility that the boat has hit something ,” concluded McGougan.

Paolo Manganelli’s (structural engineer) initial thoughts on the cause of the crack after a visual inspection of the boat were the same. “ It’s a bit too early to say very much right now, but we are not ruling out a collision with a submerged object.”

Kito de Pavant (Groupe Bel), who has been motoring back since his boat was dismasted on Monday, has been met at sea by his support team and his family, who took out a few extra cans of diesel. He is due to reach Les Sables at around 1h30-2h tonight, at almost the same time as Yannick Bestaven (Aquarelle.com). Kito will receive a warm welcome. Family, friends, support team and more than fifty employees of his sponsor will be lining the harbour walls to welcome him back. Then, there will be the people of Les Sables, who are always there to support the Vendée Globe sailors, at every hour of the day or night. A hotline has been set up to inform people of Kito's ETA. If you are in Les Sables and want to be there tonight, the number is 06 60 14 28 95 28.  

“I am starting to feel half-human again, after a night "rest", compared to the first three days of this race. Yesterday was the transition between the storm and the "Portuguese Trade Winds".
The wind slowly dropped, and the waves became less aggressive. I was able to do a complete check over ROXY to make sure there was no damage during the storm; inside and out. All looks well, except the little breakages on my runner slack line, and the oil spill in the aft compartment. When the wind and waves had dropped enough, I managed to find enough energy to hoist the big gennaker, and by the end of the day ROXY was surfing down the Atlantic swell!   A nice surprise, just before sunset, I saw a little sail out towards the West - it was Aviva! So I managed to call Dee on the VHF and we had a little chat. It was nice to find out that she was OK too, and to hear the voice of someone who is close by. Then we were "buzzed" by a Spanish coastguard aeroplane who called us up to congratulate us for getting through the storm - and to tell us to call him "if we ever needed anything!!??" 

Last night I concentrated on getting some sleep - real sleep of more than 10 or 15 minutes at a time. I had several long (40 minute) sleeps and a few 20 minute ones.   This morning, I have been starting my little jobs - as we surf along. I have repaired one of my runners, and after my porridge, I will get going on the other side......"  sent by e-mail by Sam today.