I'm a bit disappointed because the northerly option I took to avoid the main depression should have been better than this. Yesterday, I was stuck for a good part of the day, even though that's not what the weather forecast was saying at all.

I'm doing pretty well, physically, mentally too, I feel pretty good, no major problems on the boat, little things here and there but nothing too bad. I'm a bit tired now because since yesterday evening, the conditions have been very manageable, but extremely unstable and so it's really stopping me from sleeping and that’s a bit tough! It seems to be stabilizing a bit now so I'm going to try to do that later but all day long it's been incessant sail changes, wind shifts, it's almost like we're in the Doldrums but a Roaring Forties version, quite strange! But there you go, I'm going to try to sleep tonight, otherwise everything's fine. The boat is fine too, there were some cool moments today so I was able to go round the boat inside and out, everything seems to be going well.
My choice to climb to the North? There is a depression coming from behind, from the West, which is going to catch up with us and sweep across the entire Kerguelen area, and when it reaches my level, it is going to deepen seriously and be downright bad. And the centre of this depression is quite to the North! If you were to find yourself trapped just in front of the centre of the depression, or worse in the South of the centre you find yourself in a North-East wind tacking upwind, in strong wind, we are talking about 30-40 knots, and especially behind the center of the depression it deepens very strongly and there are winds up to 50-60 knots. And it is obviously kicking up a big seas and waves forecast to be 8-9 meters. So conditions I don’t really want to get into, so we have a significant move to the North shift to avoid the strong wind and the rough sea behind.
These are the decisions that we’ve made! On paper it's not necessarily a winning route, it's to escape the depression, but I didn't want to find myself in a situation where I'm subject to this depression. By positioning myself to the North, it allows me to if I wish gain a little more in the North to escape from the rough seas and strong winds. This depression deserves care and attention! We are still going to sail a committed route which will be easier to maneuver on and to go faster, perhaps more than boats that would go to the center of the depression with a risk of being knocked around, of having breakages, and of not handling their boat as it should be!
The boats in front are making different choices, but it's because the small gap we had of a hundred miles two or three days ago allowed them to keep the wind for longer and therefore go faster. I didn't do any routing for them, but they may have a slightly different scenario for managing this depression! But I had looked around a bit, and we can clearly see that in the first group Thomas Ruyant didn't manage to catch the first train and so he's a bit caught in the light wind, and he's heading more north, I have the impression that he's coming back to us. Behind, they made pretty much the same choice as Jérémie and me. In any case, I preferred to make this choice early!
The very unstable conditions, calm spells, spells where there are 20 knots where the files say 12, I even sailed close-hauled today, I did everything, downwind VMG, I put out a lot of sails, I wasn’t bored.
Tonight I hope it will be more stable, and from tomorrow afternoon it should strengthen. At the beginning it will be nice, because the entire port tack that takes us towards the North-East the sea will still be flat, and unfortunately when we gybe towards the South-East and Australia, we will find ourselves confronted with this little trade-off between the strength of the wind and the state of the sea!

"I wanted to keep things simple. I didn’t feel comfortable with the idea of passing inside the Cape Finisterre TSS with coastal traffic, fishermen, weaving between cargo ships before and after the TSS, likely with a lot of wind and waves, while having to gybe. So I chose a simpler route, even if it meant losing some time, to better utilize the boat’s potential. Unfortunately, I had a small rudder issue just as I was passing Cape Finisterre last night: the tiller arm came loose, and I had to stop the boat for a bit of repairs. I lost some time, but these things happen."