Justine Mettraux (38 years old) is a professional sailor. She was born in Geneva, grew up in Versoix, and is now based in Lorient. Since November 10, the Imoca Teamwork skipper has embarked on the Vendée Globe, a non-stop, unassisted sailing trip around the world which takes place every four years. A great first that she comments on.
I wanted to start by apologizing. I would have liked to give you my news yesterday (editor’s note: Monday) but I had two technical problems on my boat, so I was quite busy.
I managed to resolve one and the other is no longer affecting my performance, but I still have some work to fix it completely. This made me lose a little ground at the head of the fleet, but I am little by little regaining 100% of the boat’s potential.
Over these first fifteen days, I think I can say that they were the most complicated moments I experienced. Everything is going well and suddenly things go wrong. We know it’s part of the game, but it’s hard to accept that it will compromise your performance at any given moment.
Since I left Les Sables d’Olonne, there have also been some lovely moments. I have had bright nights when we were off the coast of the Canary Islands or Cape Verde. There was a lot of moon, we were downwind, in easy conditions. It was really cool.
I also had the chance to go part of the way with dolphins. We often see them on the routes we take off the coast of Brittany, but it is rare to see animals in the open ocean. It was nice. Otherwise, I only saw flying fish. There, we get closer to South Africa and therefore to the whales. I hope I don’t see any too closely.
A group seems to stand out at the head of this Vendée. With my little technical problems, I’m a little behind him. Let’s see if I can catch up with the leaders. This will become clearer in the coming days.
