Damien Seguin on Groupe APICIL was reached at 0400hrs UTC this morning. He is now sailing in calmer conditions and is preparing to get through a small high pressure area. Seguin was roused from his routine hour-long nap and seems to be perfectly managing his race and life aboard his red and white IMOCA.
I'm fine, in fact very well I’d say, I have wind and the sea has calmed down.
I sleep taking naps of maximum 1 hour. Every hour, the alarm goes off and I go around and check the boat. I look at the course, the speed, all my settings… I try to get as many hours as possible while it is dark. This is when the human body rests the most, I try to get 5 to 6 hours of sleep per 24 hours. That’s what I've managed to try to have from the start. I am not dreaming as I sleep in hourly intervals and so I am immediately into a deep sleep, it is not a paradoxical (REM) sleep where there are dreams. There hasn't been a period when I dreamed on this Vendée Globe. I don't dream about home or pizza, except on the day I think about it! "
I have enough food, I left with 90 days of food. I have varied the dishes but not enough, there are things that I get tired of. I do yearn for fruit, I want to eat vegetables. But I have to be patient, but I have no complaints. I have the same Beaufort (cheese) still. The Beaufort story is great: a teacher from a class in Savoie came to see the boat in Douarnenez . And and he sent me 2 kg of Beaufort, so I have it every week.
We passed the back side of a depression these last 24 hours, it was not pleasant: we were upwind in a lot of sea. Now, it has calmed down and the wind and the sea are more even and it will come down a bit. The goal now is to get around a small high pressure area, it's cat-and-mouse game right now. I managed to put a few miles on my pursuers behind me. I am not too unhappy. I can go the distance, The future looks good Charlie Dalin and Thomas Ruyant are not that far away.
It’s a bit easier for us than for Yannick (Bestaven). Sometimes being in front is good, sometimes being in front you are first into a system and the others come back at you. That’s the difficulty of this climb up the South Atlantic. I'm winning little bits here and there at the moment, but don't get upset, you have to stay calm, believe in your lucky stars. I take things as they come, I'm happy to be where I am.”
Damien Seguin, APICIL Group