Mirabaud is currently sailing in some of the most inaccessible waters on the planet, approximately 4000kms from South Africa and 2500kms from Australia. The nearest land is French territory in the form of the Kerguelen Islands, around 700kms to the south-west. In order words, there’s not a lot of company at the moment, but that doesn’t seem to bother the team on board Mirabaud.
“The sun is beating down, we’ve 20 knots of breeze in the right direction, the sea state is good and things are going well on board,” explains Dominique. “We had an eventful night; there was hardly any moon and we were speeding along, so pretty scary conditions! But we’re happy with the result this morning as we’ve stretched out our lead in front of our rivals Neutrogena.”
The only shadow on this almost perfect picture is that Mirabaud is once again heading north, in order to make the next ice gate, ‘Amsterdam’, which they should reach in a few hours. There is evidently another large high pressure system lying in wait for them at the gate. “The wind will gradually start decreasing over the next few hours and we’re going to lose ground against the leaders. We’re unfortunately going to find ourselves becalmed for a short while, before we can head south again and the wind goes aft for us.”
After the difficult sailing conditions of the past few days, Dominique and Michèle are making the most of the clement conditions to rest and carry out some maintenance. “We’re under full sail at the moment and the autopilot in handling the conditions well. We’ve both managed to sleep and we’re now fixing a few little things while the weather is good. But, in general the boat is in good shape.”
