“I made a great comeback after a slightly missed start.”

“I made a great comeback after a slightly missed start. But this is really a regatta for figarists. I knew it was going to be dynamic downwind. It's true that I'd have liked to have done a bit less pounding on the boat, because it's going really fast now, averaging 26 knots almost the whole way down. Some people were faster when the seas were flat, but when the seas started to get a little rougher, I was able to really match them, and was even a little faster. I feel very much in tune with the boat and I've made the right choice of sail, which allows me to keep the boat moving all the time. I'm really happy to be back on the water, even if it's a bit wild and I hope it won't be like this all the time on the Vendée Globe! It's great to be racing in a real regatta with some fantastic boats. It's physical and very intense

This race can help to make the boat more reliable, because we're going to be putting a lot of pressure on it on very fast tacks with wind shifts. That's a bit the case here, we're under big gennaker, we're hot at an angle, it's pulling hard on the boat, but it's going well. We're constantly fine-tuning to get the boat moving as well as possible.

We had a rather windy start to the race and from midday we're expecting lighter winds. That'll be interesting, as I'm a little less experienced in medium winds than the others. I'm really pleased to see so many details in 48 hours. Alongside the best sailors in the IMOCA class, my aim remains to find the answers to the questions I have before the Vendée Globe.”