Solitaire du Figaro - Sailors prepare for Leg 3 start

by Marie Le Berrigaud-Perochon on 21 Jun 2014 Leg 3 of La Solitaire du Figaro - Eric Bompard cachemire begins this Sunday at 1400BST. The 505nm leg will see the 38 solo sailors race from Roscoff around the French coast to Les Sables d'Olonne, the port where the Vendee Globe race starts and finishes every four years.

Ed Hill (Macmillan Cancer Support): 'The course is a good course, this Leg will be very interesting. A coastal race for the first 24-36 hours and then going a long way offshore to a buoy called Odas, it's a weather buoy in the middle of the Atlantic, past the Atlantic shelf. We're in 4,500metres of water so the buoy can move 4-5nm from where it says it is because it's probably on a 12,000metre chain! We round that and then head to a buoy off Bordeaux and then it's 50nm up the coast when we're absolutely broken, back into inshore mode to arrive in Les Sables d'Olonne which I'm sure will be a really good welcome, knowing Les Sables d'Olonne and how much they love their solo sailing.'

Hoping to hold on to his top rookie spot, Britain's Sam Matson (Artemis 21) thinks the trip out across the Bay of Biscay to the Odas buoy will be one of the most important parts of the race in terms of tactics:

Sam Matson (Artemis 21) 'You're literally arriving in the middle of no-where and turning around and coming back, there's a lot of ocean, a lot of open water to potentially make gains or losses depending on how your speed looks. We know the rough area of it, I think it's got a drifting circle of around six miles or so. The race boat will go ahead, pinpoint it and I think they then radio back to us where it is and they'll sit roughly in that area so we can see it on AIS. It probably is like finding a needle in a haystack, it's literally just one buoy in the middle of the Bay of Biscay, quite interesting!'

Fabien Delahaye (Skipper Macif 2012) is the current overall leader but with 995nm still to race in this edition of the Solitaire and 11 sailors within an hour of him, the 29 year old from Caen is taking nothing for granted.

Fabien Delahaye (Skipper Macif 2012): 'I don't feel under pressure, I do not really look at the standings. 11 boats are still in the game, we could arrive in Les Sables d'Olonne in no wind. We are never away from anything on the Solitaire. The third Leg will be different. It will be open, there will be very different paces, offshore, coastal, it may be a great Leg. I feel good, I do an hour of physio every day, I repaired my hands'.

The wind here in Roscoff has been gusting 40km/h NE'ly today. This is expected to drop to 10-14kn of NE'ly by the time the race starts on Sunday afternoon. The fleet is expected to arrive in Les Sables next Tuesday or Wednesday.

Alan Roberts (Artemis 23): 'There will be a lot more coastal racing in this leg, a bit more local knowledge, going around the rocks a bit more will come into play. We've already sailed around that coastline a bit and it has shown that there are points where people can dive into the rocks and gain a few miles over a ten miles stretch so that will come into play.'

Thierry Chabagny (Gedimat): 'There will be a lot of watching. Those behind will attack in the corners, and the conservatives will play safe and deviate as little as possible from the direct route. I am between the two. I am 39 minutes behind the lead, I can still play to win, but I'm no longer in contact with the first; I do not have that pressure. I really want to go looking for a podium and even a stage win. This is what I came for. '

Henry Bomby (Red): 'We'll be passing the Chenal du Four and the Raz de Sein which is a real interesting area to sail, there's a huge amount of tide and a lot of land effects. It can actually be quite rough as we go through the Raz de Sein, we sail this area a lot in our training and it's different every time. We then sail really close to where I trained all winter in South Brittany at Port-La-Foret. So all that area is quite well known to me now, it feels a little more like home than the other areas of the French coast maybe. I think Les Sables d'Olonne is quite a special place for all of us, most of us dream of one day doing the Vendee Globe. The people in the town really understand the racing - they know all the skippers' names, they know their CVs and will stop you in the street just to say hi, it's totally different to anything we've ever experienced anywhere Event website