Second on the Vendée Globe leaderboard since yesterday Damien Seguin is not unhappy with his ranking. The solo skipper of Groupe APICIL has done well from his option in the East and is expecting to get into new breeze after skirting to the east of the centre of a high pressure which has generated only light winds for him in recent days. This is Seguin from the radio call early this morning…..
“I’m on the edge of the high, I’m starting to lift with the curve of it, that’s what I came here for. I’m going to start feeling wind again in a few hours. I’m upwind, I’m going to go with it. I’m not giving up my option, I think it’s a good one”.
Believe in your lucky star
“Immediately after the Horn, you had to deal with fatigue and make decisions. I didn’t want to go through the Lemaire Strait like Thomas Ruyant and so I accepted I would lose ground to him at that moment. And really until now I have never made a bad choice. I continue to believe in my lucky stars. It was also a choice to control my opponents behind me. I am happy to be second on the leaderboard, I can’t hide my happiness to be here where I am on the water right now, even if it is complicated. There will still be traps. I have taken my option, I believe in it, I’m going all the way, and this is a big option, I’m not on an Olympic regatta in the 2.4. I feel like I’m having a good time. It’s great!”
A very different strategy from the great South
“The change feels radical after the Horn. You are protected from the Pacific swell. It’s nice at the moment, because we were exhausted. I rested. It feels good to eat without losing stuff all over the place, to sleep without hanging on to your bunk. On the Vendée Globe, there are ups and downs! Here it’s easier to live but now not easy in the head. The tactical element of the Deep South is the AEZ. Your tactics are with the wind and this constraint of gybing along the ice barrier. Now here we are in open water, without an AEZ, the strategic data is different, and so it is all a different way of thinking. The files are not all adding up and so choices had to be made. I feel I have anticipated the choices of the competitors behind, I am not unhappy with my positioning. I think a little more about the ranking now it’s a very different phase”.
