Banque Populaire V continues her roll to the Jules Verne record, despite almost 24 hours of sailing the wrong way. Here’s the latest onboard interview, translated by SA’er “Laurent”, and for the foodies out there, be sure to check this vid and this translation to learn just how good holiday dinner can still be after forty days at sea.
Loick: Happy new year to everybody!
Journalist: how was the New Year’s Eve dinner? Everything went fine?
Loick: A little bit rough actually, but because of the route we are taking, it is no longer that bad. But nothing crazy; 4 people on deck, 4 people on standby and 4 people in their bunk. The exceptional dinner was prepared by Xavier, PYM, our Swiss on board and Chab. Foie Gras, with a bit of wine; I discovered that afterwards, there was a bit of leftover of a bottle of Montbazillac laying around… And because we are very serious about hygiene, we poured a bit of sterilizer solution on dried fruits, the sterilizer solution being a small bottle of rhum… and all of that was sunken into a lyophilized dessert… which is still for the most part untouched. So not much success with the dessert so far…
It’s really complicated for the crew and for the boat. The sea state was really bad and that is one of the reasons why I decided to take a weird route. And I am sure it is going to surprise everybody; it looks like we want to make a stop to New York first! And it’s not completely wrong! At least for the next 24 hours, we are going to continue sailing in that direction. Unfortunately, it is the only way for us to go back home and avoid getting into the Azores High Pressure system. So we have a converging route with a low pressure system which is appearing off shore Newfoundland. So we should be pointing in the right direction sometime tomorrow.
If we believe the current forecasts, which sometimes look a bit strange, we should arrive around the 6th or the 7th. 6th in the evening, or in the night between the 6th and the 7th… there is a big probability to arrive by night anyway, since there is still much more nighttime than day right now. But we will make sure that we arrive in Brest harbor during daytime.
We are living the last hours with some kind of tropical weather; then it is going to be a bit slow, starting tonight or tomorrow morning. Don’t worry, it should last until tomorrow night, and then slowly but surely, it should speed up towards the finish line. We should arrive with sunshine, cool temperatures, but sunshine.
We are not there yet!!! We are still on the other side of the Northern Atlantic… It’s very nice, all those forecasts and ETA… but it is still sailing! I know I am repeating myself, but unfortunately, gear failure is still looming over our heads. Everything can happen. At this stage, a surprise can only be a bad surprise… Not much we can do about it. But we are where we are right now, thanks to the team and the people who are part of this project. Most of the crew is here from the start, the construction of the boat or at least from the first campaign of records, three years ago. As I say, I am just the icing on the cake, my role is just to make sure that the crew works well together, especially in such a small space for 40 days. Obviously, it is much easier to deal with when you are wealthy and in good health! Having such a lead on the record makes it easier. The mood is great on board, obviously.
We have started to realize how many people are enjoying our story, and we will try to share it us much as we can. If it can bring a bit of happiness and joy in those hard times, so be it!
