Aboard his Excess 11, Skiboo 2, the solo sailor had been making excellent progress: comparing his current route with the forecasts drawn up several weeks before his departure from La Rochelle, he finds a difference of barely 20 nautical miles! This is a reassuring confirmation of the stability of the weather conditions, but also of how well his Navimetrix routing software has been configured.
Physically, everything is going well too. Éric has found his rhythm and isn't feeling particularly tired. His method? Sleeping whenever the opportunity arises, even if that means taking numerous short naps to make up for more unsettled nights.
But the weather has changed again. “What a magnificent patch of absolutely no wind!” jokes our skipper. Under mainsail and gennaker, Skiboo 2 is now making slow progress. And when the wind becomes too light, the sails lose their shape, start flogging and can produce a few unpleasant surprises. That's exactly what happened to the gennaker, when the fabric caught on a small pin that hadn't been properly secured. The result: another tear in a sail that had already been repaired once before.
No question of leaving things as they are! Éric gets out his special adhesive tape for lightweight sails, cuts two strips and applies them to either side of the damaged fabric. He also takes the opportunity to repair a second small tear. The result? “Completely unsightly, but effective!” The gennaker can now be put under tension again. All that remains is to cover the offending pin with tape to prevent it from happening again.
Between occasional puffs of wind and some improvised sail repairs, Éric continues south toward Madeira, which he expects to pass during the night, before heading offshore of the Canary Islands.
Follow Skiboo 2 on the Garmin tracking map
