Vendée Globe - Ari Huusela. 'My last 24 hours has been horrible'

Ari Huusela FIN (Stark): My last 24 hours has been horrible and then it eased off during the night a bit and I started to get some rest because I could not sleep for about 30 hours. The waves were so nasty and the wind was quite bad, 30-35kts, and then it dropped to 28 but the waves were terrible, the seas horrible, the wind had turned 180 degrees and so the sea state was horrible. The boat was slamming so hard I thought it would break down. The boat is still in one piece and I am in one piece. There is still some sticky weather patterns to come and so I need to concentrate on the them. I have not updated myself yet because I am so tired I am just trying to sleep a bit and then concentrate.

There will be some heavy downwind and then passing the Azores is tricky, where to go through the islands. I was looking at my numbers again yesterday and got quite depressed because I was not getting anywhere really. I was fighting hard and was not even getting any miles towards the finish line. I will be in eight or nine days. But even yesterday I still managed to make my special morning coffee and afternoon coffee. This is the time to recover.

In the Mini you had the same boat as Sam had first and then you sold it on to Isabelle Joschke?

Yes I bought it from Sam for my 2003 Mini Transat campaign and afterwards I sold it on late in 2003 to Isa. Sam brought the boat to Locmiquélic and she prepared the boat with me for the first race and then later on I sold the boat to Isa and she had come straight from the Caribbean where she had been sailing. I went to France and helped he start her Mini campaign which was nice. And what is also interesting is that in 1999 (actually 2001) when I did my first Mini Yannick Bestaven and Arnaud Boissieres and Romain were all there and now I end up in the Vendée Globe at the same times as them all.

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Cover photo © Ari Huusela / Stark