The wind howls through the rigging as the boat lurches to and fro, bouncing off of the dock lines holding us securely at Lorient La Base. From my cabin where I am writing, I have to remind myself we're not actually on passage in the ocean, the boat moves around so much. It's fall now, and with October right around the corner, the weather is slowly becoming more and more volatile as we desperately wait for any sort of weather window. The hope was to hit the Canaries right about now, but the weather has been far from our favor. We've been waiting this week out, as storm systems slam the Bay of Biscay with over 40 knots of wind (46 mph or 75 kmh) and seas reaching up to 30 feet high.
The current wind model for Sunday afternoon. The dark purple patches contain wind gusts up to 61 knots, 70 mph or 111 kmh.
The list of last-minute boat jobs steadily decreases as we get closer and closer to a final departure date. It seems our best chance to squeeze out of here is sometime on Tuesday.
A close up of the mast given to Romain Attanasio from team Fortinet Best Western after their dismasting in the Défi Azimut, by fellow competitor Maxime Sorel on Imoca V and B-Monbana-Mayenne
The monstrous 29-meter long mast is guided into the team's base
Ultim Sodebo sits before the departure to Concarneau for the Finistère-Atlantique
Smiling at the top after my first solo mast climb
And the view as the sun set from behind
Armel Le Cléac’h's Banque Populaire at blue hour
I ran into this Mini 6.50 during a little dinghy ride out of the Lorient harbor
A phenomenal spinnaker run
A grand view of La Base, a WW2-era German submarine base
A close-up of the individual submarine bays, surrounded by 2 meters (6.5 feet) of reinforced concrete
