Jean Baptiste Dejeanty, the skipper of Groupe Maisonneuve, announced this morning, December 16, at 7H15, his decision to retire from the race.  Problems of halyards and automatic pilots drove the skipper to make such a decision.  The skipper is safe and is sailing towards Port Elizabeth, South Africa, which is around 1200 miles from his current position.

 

"The wind is down from its near hurricane strength last night, and the leftover sea is big and messy, and the boat is bouncing off waves in every direction, very unpleasant. We had steady 55/57 knots with periods in 60s also. The storm jib did good work, keeping us on a beam reach to get past the lee shore of Crozet. When we started down that south side, it was a nice broad reach, and it looked as if we'd be able to get past before the wind changed, but no... It was very cold. The inside of the cabin is like a lake with the condensation dripping everywhere. When the wind finally started to reduce, I took several naps. The last one, I was thrown out of the bunk, but high enough so that I didn't come through the opening in the bulkhead, but in fact fetched up on the bulkhead with my head, cushioned by my ear. It hurts. I was using the watch alarm on the radar through the first part of the storm, until on a check up forward, I noticed that with 55 knots of wind, the hinged radome simply blows 90 degrees to leeward, so that it would not be scanning the horizon, but a vertical slice of the sky. I turned of the radar and went with the Activ Echo. When putting up the staysail in the morning, I saw that the port side titanium support rail near the mast had been broken at a weld. The reacher and genaker halyards were tied there, and the swaying of the two halyards in the violence of the storm had broken the titanium weld."
Rich Wilson (Great American III) in his daily message

 

"The adventure has turned into a hand to hand fight over the past few days. The Indian, the Apache, the Mohican is a brave warrior. And we're the poor cowboys, who under-estimated the wild natural instincts of this ocean. We racers with our brand new silver dream machines, are no longer grouped together, but have spread out. The battlefield that appeared in the naked light of day revealed damaged multihulls and downhearted sailors.  This description may appear exaggerated, but talking it over with people around here and looking at my own condition and my boat, that's how it feels this morning.  The Indian Ocean is in the process of granting or refusing permission and the toll is expensive.  Waking up this morning was like coming out of a nightmare. I'm stunned, not to say reeling from the violence.  The Indian, which was sleeping in me, has awoken.  I'm fed up simply putting up with it.  As I write this letter, as I try to find the right words, I can feel the rebel appearing in me, rather like an adolescent facing his father.  Now I'm going to fight head held high, intent on gaining revenge for you, my blood brother, for your gang in the Abers (in Brittany), my friend Bernard. The Indian deserves a lot of respect  and you need to remain humble when crossing it.  But I have even more respect for you and your family. The fight goes on.  For not much longer now, but I'm holding out.”
Yann Eliès in his daily message

 

"What an amazing day yesterday! The wind was established between 35 and 40 knots all day, with gusts of 45. The waves were mountains, and Roxy was hooning along, on the edge of control! I wanted to push quite hard to gain some miles with the weather system towards the security gate. The waves were so impressively scary that I tried not to look at them. That way I wouldn't chicken out and reduce sail too much! Anyway, it is better to keep going fast in these big seas so that Roxy does not get overpowered by a breaking wave.  As night fell, the wind started to shift and I had to gybe in the pitch black, with the huge waves. It was quite an adrenalin buzz to control Roxy in those conditions, working out in the cockpit as she screams along at 25 knots. This morning, it has been full-on. The wind has been easing, and I was planning a day of tidying and preparing Roxy for the next storm. Just as my porridge was ready to eat, there was a bit of  a lurch and a bang. I looked out and saw that the starboard rudder had kicked up - we had obviously hit something. Then I realised that instead of 14-15 knots we were doing just 8! I rolled the solent and quickly got the endoscope out to check under the boat. I couldn't see the keel because there  was a  huge packet of seaweed wrapped around it. We had literally "parked up" in a big pile of sea-weed. The rudder was the first priority. I found myself in the scoop at the back of Roxy, tools in hands, practically underwater, as because we were going so slowly the huge waves were breaking into the scoop. So, after a bit of a "pit-stop" I got Roxy off again, re-stacked, gybed ,shook out 2 reefs, and set the headsails. Totally knackered and a messy cockpit with ropes everywhere! And, on top of that - cold porridge..."
Sam Davies (Roxy) in her daily message

 

"Hi there.  My night message is actually my day message, as from 20H30 TU it has been light on board Foncia. There's a moon out and the skies were covered in stars as there were just a few clouds on the horizon.  The moon came out,  a full moon, firstly orange, then yellow, lighting up the waves.  With 30 knots of wind you could already see the white tops.  It lasted for ten minutes, but it was a magical moment.  A little moment to savour.  Tried to get some sleep in the bunk, but it was moving around too much, so I tried the pouffe and fell asleep.  It's nice to be able to say that I'm sleeping when others are working.  Hope that doesn't upset anyone."
Michel Desjoyeaux (Foncia) in his message received during the night

 

"Hi there! During the night something got caught up in the keel. I thought first of all it was a piece of rope or a mooring cable.  I stopped the boat and went backwards and it came away!  An hour later and it happened again. I zig-zagged with the boat and set off again.  I think it must have been weed.  Apart from that the Véranda is gliding along ahead of the next low-pressure system that should take us along quickly to the Australian gate. "
Arnaud Boissières (Akena Vérandas) in his daily message