Sailing 120 miles from South Africa this morning, Maisonneuve is due to reach Port-Elizabeth tonight. Still suffering from a faulty pilot and wear to his mainsail halyard, Jean-Baptiste will be helped once he is there by a team of lifeboatmen from the local yacht club and a Frenchman, who has offered to help. After a quick return to France, a few repairs in Port-Elizabeth in early January, the skipper will set sail again, this time accompanied by his assistant, Ronan Cointo, for a delivery trip to Lorient in Brittany.
«This return trip is really dreadful! My final pilot made a mistake twice today and the mainsail halyard is 80% worn away in some places. I must admit that all that is beginning to get me down. I have tidied up and dried out the boat, eaten and slept. I even offered myself some time off to watch some DVDs, which I have never done before at sea.»

Jean-Baptiste Dejeanty (Maisonneuve) by e-mail.
 

"With the continuous southwest wind at 26-30 knots I've had to throttle back a bit to keep the boat together. Since passing Kerguelen Islands, it's been pretty much a starboard jibe all the way to the west Australia gate. I spoke to Rich Wilson yesterday who reported having a close encounter with a ship which he only saw on radar after they has passed each other. It's a scary thought as we think we are alone down here. He tried calling them on the VHF but could not raise them. I check the radar a lot more often now.The nights are nasty cold on deck so it's just a quick pop your head out, look around and duck back inside before the next wall of sea water comes rumbling down the deck over the coachroof and into the cockpit. I had an incident with the control lines getting washed out the back of the cockpit and struggled for an hour getting the mainhalyard tail back onto the boat. Imagine 250 feet of line being dragged along at 15 knots. The load was tremendous and it was all I could do to get it onto a winch and grind it back on board. Today's lunch is chicken stew, one of my favourites."
Derek Hatfield (Algimouss-Spirit of Canada)
 

"Roxy is still gliding along "Black Pearl" style happily on her own under big gennaker, which has enabled me to cash in some good sleep into my "sleep bank"! I think I have managed at least 8 hours in the last 24, and I must be almost back in credit!

Genevive - the big gennaker - is enjoying stretching her cloth out in the sunshine after having been cooped up in Roxy's port bunk for rather a long time! But soon, we will have the usual struggle between her and me to get her rolled up, back down in the boat again. That manouver takes at least an hour, as we (me and Genevive) have to get down the forehatch, through the small hatch in the mast bulkhead, over the keel rams, in front of the nav station (without touching any of the switches!) round 90°, then folded into the bunk!

Another little treat today - the Roxy boys have told me I'm allowed to open the Christmas decorations box, so I've been putting up tinsel, and I've even got a christmas tree!"

Sam Davies (Roxy) in her daily message

The Vendée Globe race directors are beginning to calculate the dates for rounding the Horn, the third of the legendary capes in this circumnavigation. If the leaders keep up the current pace covering 350 miles a day, the leaders should be rounding the tip of South America early in the New Year on 2nd January. They still have around 4000 miles to cover before that...
 

Bernard Stamm and his Cheminées Poujoulat are still aboard the Marion Dufresne, which is continuing her mission as supply vessel in the Indian Ocean. She is currently at Amsterdam Island, 750 miles north of the Kerguelens. They will be finishing their voyage in early January in St Denis (Reunion Island). As for Jean-Baptiste Dejeanty, he has almost completed his voyage. The skipper of Maisonneuve was only 285 miles from Port Elizabeth (South Africa) yesterday evening. Finally, Unaï Basurko (Pakea Bizkaïa) intends to sail all the way home by himself. He is heading for Bilbao, and yesterday was 260 miles south of the Cape Verde Islands.
 

The frigate HMAS Arunta arrived in Fremantle this morning at 3h10 GMT. He was immediately transferred to the Royal Perth Hospital.

Jean-Baptiste Epron's declaration after a short conversation with Yann Eliès in Perth this morning: «The Arunta moored up just after 3. We spent five minutes with Yann before he was taken off. He is in a suit which protects his chest and leg. He is talking very slowly due to the medicine. The medical team are with him and the captain came to say goodbye. Yann thanked him and they agreed to see each other, when he is better. The ambulance was waiting just outside. there were 6 or 7 in the team to take him off. You can tell that he cannot stand moving and is still suffering in spite of the medicine. I think he was pleased to see us and was waiting to go to hospital. It's not easy leaving him like that. With Philippe (editor: Laot, Team Generali's technical director), we'll be setting off in a few hours to recover his boat. That will be one thing less to worry about.»