Mirabaud is still in the yard and the skipper and his technical team are working on getting it ready for the big race.
“We have approximately another month ashore before we can hoist the sails and test the yacht in its Vendée Globe configuration,” said Dominique, adding: “We are aiming for the 18 April.”
From that moment on, Dominique’s goal will be to sail short-handed as much as possible to perfect his boat handling. “Every time we go out we will have a list of objectives – this is something we are working on at the moment. In general we will aim to be out for 12-hour stretches, a tide cycle, which in practice will mean five hours in one direction and five hours in the other. There will be a checklist of tests and the goal is to try to tick off as many as we can based on the weather and the schedule of the day. For example, it is entirely possible that we will test a new reaching sail, specific boat handling techniques, the hydro generator and the bilge pump on the same day. And then the day after that, it will be something else and so on until the job list gets smaller. It is very unlikely that we will ever reach the end of the list, the most important thing at this stage is to define the priorities and deal with those first.”
For now Mirabaud remains in the yard while the team finishes the last few jobs before fitting the new spray dodger. “There are no major projects, this period in the yard is more about checking everything and improving dozens of little things to optimise the boat as much as possible.”
