Questioned about the amount of work he is having to do on board Adrien, VDH's answer is quite clear:<I> It's not down to strength or muscle power. It's willpower that's pushing me on.</I>
Off the African coast, Adrien continues to make headway towards the Equator, which she should cross in a week. The wind coming from behind is very unstable, forcing Jean-Luc to carry out a lot of manoeuvres setting sails. Coming around up to 6 times a day in a 30 tonnes monohull, you can imagine that the yachtsman from Amiens has been building up his pectorals!
"Not at all, it's nothing to do with strength. Only willpower enables me to make headway. Moreover, it's probably for that reason that there is no drugs problem in our discipline. Sailing remains a great sport, and even someone of my great age can still do it. More than that, I'm sailing alone, there are no spectators or anyone to urge me on. It's up to me to push myself on, all by myself."
After a night without any wind, Adrien picked up some air again this morning.
"It's not steady in direction or strength. It can suddenly turn around, to such an extent that as I'm resting on my staysail with the spinnaker up, I don't have time to reset it. I got the spinnaker a bit tangled up, so I decided to lower it when I was going to sleep. It's the sensible thing to do." Jean-Luc can thus relax when he goes to sleep, especially as his lead over Philippe MONNET isn't fading away at all.