Fatigue is setting in, the squalls keep coming, and Guadeloupe still feels a long way off. Yet out on the Atlantic, the Route du Rhum fleet is still finding reasons to smile.
The ocean has been putting on a show. Skippers have been capturing and sharing striking images from on board, the kind of light that only open water seems to produce.
Among those featured in the latest updates from the water are Boris Herrmann, Sébastien Simon, Mikael Mergui, Arnaud Boissières, Christophe Bachmann, Davy Beaudart, Ulysse Pozzoli and Romain Pilliard, the latter whose trimaran Use It Again was involved in the collision off Bréhat that ultimately ended Violette Dorange's race just days after the Saint-Malo start.
It is a stretch that shows what the Route du Rhum really asks of these sailors: days and nights alone, boats pushed hard, and still the job of holding a course east to west across one of the world's great stretches of ocean. Further ahead in the fleet, that demand has been especially stark. Tom Laperche has been battling dying trade winds and a tropical depression as he tries to protect his lead towards Guadeloupe, while Jean-Baptiste Daramy has faced his own test of nerve, riding out 35-knot squalls on the same approach.
For New Zealand sailors who follow the IMOCA and Ultim classes closely, this stretch of the race is always worth watching. The tactical calls being made now, as the fleet works through the Atlantic, often shape how the rest of the crossing unfolds.
No dramas reported, just steady progress, long hours, and the occasional photo home. It is a reminder of why sailors keep coming back to races like this one.
