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At 1645HRS UTC, Renaud Courbon and François Champion, skippers of the Class40 The Sea Cleaners - Univerre - ENSM told race management that their boat has dismasted. The crew are doing well, they are 65 miles southwest of Lorient.
After checking the boat, the duo announced that there was no water ingress, that they have secured the boat and that they were motoring towards Lorient.

More info to come.

At 0830hrs UTC on Tuesday morning 40 IMOCAs will finally set sail from Le Havre, meaning that the whole fleet with its four classes in the 16th Transat Jacques Vabre Normandie Le Havre will be on its way to Fort de France. With 25 knots of wind forecast, conditions will be lively, but manageable and we should see some great pictures at the start line and at the buoy they have to leave to starboard 4 miles away, as they make their way towards the Cherbourg Peninsula. Naturally, after such a long wait, skippers and co-skippers are raring to go. They will move straight from the comfort of life ashore to the tough conditions offshore. Less than 24 hours after the start, a new front awaits them on their way out of the English Channel. It should not last long, but is fairly active.

The ULTIMs are now in the Southern Hemisphere after crossing the Equator and passing the first major course mark of Sao Pedro and Sao Paulo. It looks like a long haul upwind to get to Ascension Island. The Maxi Banque Populaire XI continues to extend her lead over SVR Lazartigue and Maxi Edmond de Rothschild, who continue to battle it out in the trade winds. Further back, Sodebo Ultim 3 and Actual Ultim 3 had a tougher crossing through the Doldrums than their rivals and lost some ground.