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The Transat is coming to an end. We are one of the tail-enders with less than a thousand miles to go. It’s time we paid our respects to the first boats to finish. What a trio! Two boats by the same designer and the man himself. Aboard Partage, we moved away from our Class40 friends during the night. We’d been with them since the Canaries. They are heading south and we’ve gone for the North. Even if they’re not in the same class, we have been watching them closely. 
In our class, we’re lucky to have our friends on Human (Cornic and Luro) with us. They gained the advantage during the night, but we have chosen different latitudes and nothing is definitive. We’re now on the direct route towards Martinique and we are sailing along nicely under spinnaker in the moonlight. We have been doing lots of manœuvres and that uses up a lot of our energy. The wind didn’t want to settle or match the forecasts, which was tough on our nerves.

16th day of racing and another amazing sunrise and a fantastic night in the moonlight. What’s great about that is that we can see the waves coming and the puffs of air building around us. For several days now, Edenred (Le Roch / Bourgnon) has been faster than us, but we don’t know why. Maybe it’s a question of positioning and / or a different shape of hull. 
Yesterday evening, we decided to move a bit further south hoping that the weather charts are correct, but the winds are not easy to interpret at the moment. With more wind than forecast during the night, Alternative Sailing (Greck / Jones) has swooped down on us, like an eagle after its prey.

It’s great that so many people are here so early in the morning! We are really lucky to be able to sail these boats. We really enjoy them, such incredible acceleration and speed. 
There have been so many stories in this race. We tried to keep up with Monnoyeur and watched from a distance a great race in the South with Violette Dorange and Conrad Colman. They deserve to be congratulated. We would not have been so fast on the southern route. 

There are about six foilers still behind us. We wanted to be on the podium of non-foilers and we have done that. 

People told me Rémi was a great sailor. They were right. It was fantastic sailing with him. 
Conditions were tough. Passing through the front was incredible – gusts, heavy seas, great light. A memory that will stay with us. When things got better, that’s when we flooded the generator. So it’s not always in the worst weather that things go wrong.

It’s rare you have such space around you to speed in such conditions. This is really a fantastic fleet with so many strong competitors. Well done to the organisers too. It must have been hard to postpone the start and involved a lot of work.  

Louis Duc and Rémi Aubrun on Fives Group – Lantana Environnement finished at 04:51:34 local time (08:51:34 UTC), on Tuesday 21st November. Their race time was 14 days 0 hours 21 minutes and 34 seconds. 

The duo sailed the theoretical 3750 miles between Le Havre and Fort-de-France at an average speed of 11.18 knots. Out on the water, they actually sailed 4200.17 miles averaging 12.49 knots. 

They finished 2 days 2 hours 49 minutes and 3 seconds after the IMOCA winner.

We took a route to the North. We found our pace and things went naturally. I’m proud of the boat and the team and my co-skipper. At the start of the year I was only just entering the IMOCA class, and I wanted to develop my skills in weather and strategy and I think we can be pleased. We are all newcomers in this project. 

The boat was well prepared, which allowed us to sail to the North, as we were confident in the boat. The rhythm was intense. It wasn’t a cruise. We had a problem with the battens in the mainsail, but managed to narrow the gap during the race. We were up to 25 -26 knots, although at the start we wanted to limit ourselves to 20 knots. We saw on the website that in the North, everyone was talking about hellish conditions, but for us, it wasn’t that nasty. We kept a bit south of the bad weather. 

I really enjoyed the race, as we never went too far, so could feel relaxed and be happy. I have hardly ever sailed double-handed, but everything fell into place between us. The boat is still incredible. Safe, but fast. The boat gives you a feeling of security. We found it hard to shake off Louis (Duc) who kept right behind us. Thanks to him, we kept pushing hard.  
 

Benjamin Ferré and Pierre Le Roy, on Monnoyeur – Duo for a Job, finished at 01:11:12 local time (05:11:12 UTC), on Tuesday 21st November. Their race time was 13 days 20 hours 41 minutes and 12 seconds. They sail the VPLP-Verdier design which was previously Paul Meilhat's Route du Rhum winner SMA and more recently Clarence Cremer's Banque Populaire which is the first 'non-foiler' to finish this race. 

The duo sailed the theoretical 3750 miles between Le Havre and Fort-de-France at an average speed of 11.3 knots. Out on the water, they actually sailed 4291.35 miles averaging 12.9 knots. 

They finished 1 day 23 hours 8 minutes and 41 seconds after the IMOCA winner.