Jean-Luc Nélias (Sodebo Ultim’) : « Close-hauled with 25 knots of wind, we are a bit shaken. We travel towards the exclusion zone and the Nantucket coasts. We are at 21 knots. There is a meter of swell, it's a little choppy, but as we are going fast enough, the 15-ton ship is obviously jumping quite a lot. Upwind, it is all right. The routings take us far West. We will arrive along the prohibited areas. We should arrive in New York in the morning on July 4th. Yesterday evening we tacked and realized that it was missing all the bottom of the rudder on about 20 cm from the bottom part used to stabilize the boat. It's not very serious, but it slowed us down as we fixed it. »
Gwénolé Gahinet (IDEC SPORT) : « 'We're close-hauled. We took a reef in the mainsail. Having the sea up front is not that easy. We are expecting a wind rotation in a few hours. We travel on the direct route towards New York, unfortunately, it will not last as the wind will refuse to turn right. We are going to look for this rotation on exclusion zone’s side along the American coast. We could arrive from 5am on July 4th, but we might end up in a light Southwest wind and many things can happen until the arrival, with lots of maneuvers and tacks. The New York Bay is never easy, especially in these conditions. At the boat level, everything is all right, except for two or three minor injuries. We just had a small problem with the rise of the drift. We made a mistake during a reef manipulation, but we fixed it. Nothing serious. »
Stan Thuret (Actual) : « We are in the fog with a visibility reduced to 50 meters. We slide at 84° to the wind with a 24-knot speed. We're under J2, mainsail. We travel quite fast, at 23 knots, we are getting out of the ice zone. There are quite of an aquatic life around us, notably dolphins. They do not too playful, as it seems that they are here to feed themselves. Also, there are birds I had never seen before. We also see fishermen and cargo ships heading to Europe. That night, the water was 5°. Everything was wet on board and it stung a little. Davy (Beaudart) had the coldest shift. The hat, gloves and scarf were mandatory. We estimate that 3 days and 13 hours of racing are left, therefore we're going to miss the U.S. national holiday, but we'll be here for the award. »