D-1

In less than 24 hours’ time, the 79 duos competing in the 15th Transat Jacques Vabre Normandie Le Havre will cast off and make for the race start line. Naturally the race village is buzzing. The sailors are busy with the final tweaks and the general public is thronging around the dock to get a closer look at the boats and their skippers. “It’s really nice to see so many people on the pontoons. It’s important for me to have these moments to chat and share with people who’ve come along specially to meet us, even though I’m kind of in stealth mode. From time to time, it enables me to put a face to a name from the messages I receive via the team’s social media. Yesterday, I even had the opportunity to chat with a guy from the signal station on the Ile d’Yeu who I’d chatted with over the radio during the return delivery trip from the Vendée Globe between Les Sables d’Olonne and Lorient. They’re all precious moments for me”, assures Giancarlo Pedote, whose programme for his final day on land before he takes tomorrow’s start promises to be hectic, the key appointments being a final briefing by the organisation and then a briefing with Martin Le Pape, his co-skipper. “We’ll settle down at home, a bit like an old couple, before reviewing the first few miles of the course and going through the manœuvres in detail… put plainly, we’ll drink in the race”, concludes the skipper of Prysmian Group.