Now less than 24 hours from the finish line of her Vendee Globe Alexia Barrier says her back pain is very slightly better but she is not going to let it mar her arrival, when the breakfast menu will be champagne and pizza....
Ari Huusela has just passed the island of Horta in the Azores and is enjoying moderate conditions as the prelude to what looks to be a slow passage across the Bay of Biscay, but the Finnish pilot is looking to enjoy his final week at sea and says he now expects to be in next Saturday.
Ari Huusela FIN (STARK) “ I am good I got good rest last night and it was amazing to see land for the first time since Cape Horn, I went quite close to Horta in the Azores, it was night. The routing now looks quite good too, nice reaching conditions not too heavy winds, maximum 25kts, the bad thing is that the last 300 miles from the finish line in the Bay of Biscay, the last 300 miles takes three days.
Sam Davies at her Press Conference, “It’s amazing the reception I have received. I want to thank everyone, I had never imagined having so many people when I arrived out of the race. I left to do a race, sporting performance and south of the Cape of Good Hope it turned into an adventure. And it became an even tougher challenge than I had ever imagined. With my team and our sponsors we knew that there were two objectives the sports objective and also the objective of saving children by sharing the adventure. We had already talked about the possibility of abandoning. I said I wanted to finish at all costs, like Isabelle Autissier and other sailors who ended up out of the race. We even had a spare mast ready to be sent to Australia if necessary. Fortunately, we had thought about all this before because psychologically, it made things easier, even for Romain (Attanasio) and for Ruben (editor's note her son).
After being forced to abandon her race on 5th December following a violent collision with a floating object south of Cape Town two days earlier, British skipper Sam Davies sailed back into Les Sables d’Olonne in beautiful spring sunshine this afternoon to complete an inspirational round the world passage fulfilling her pledge to complete the Vendée Globe route outside of the race rankings.
Before finishing her round the world solo passage today Sam Davies paid a tribute to her team and to the local ocean racing and boat building fraternity and everyone in Cape Town who helped her get back on the water to continue her passage past the two Great Capes back to Les Sables d'Olonne.
"First of all there is my good friend Mike Giles who basically coordinated everything there and put us in touch with the right people. We were at the East Cape Shipyard being looked after by the owner Manuel Mendes. Southern Wind Shipyard sponsored us for the fabrication of the new panels and gave us an amazing boatbuilder Leroy for the repair which they insisted was free of charge. Also a few locals: Adam, Jan and really I can’t remember all of their names (luckily most of them signed inside my boat - I asked them to as it reminds me how much everyone put into this project and was constant motivation in the hard times).
My hero Paul Standbridge was part of my welcome party and with Jan Dekker also provided me with excuses to escape the boatyard and drink a beer to relax from time to time.
Steven Bentley the V&A Waterfront Harbour master was amazing and dealt perfectly with customs and mooring facilities
Woolworths (local supermarket chain) donated my fresh food for my restart and quite a few locals donated to the charity."
Skip Novak moved his boat so we could haul in and out ok!!!
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