Sunday 28th october 2001

Hervé is still in 10th position. But when we look at the map, we can notice that since 2 days, he is loosing his advance. Michel Mirabel , in the Est, climbed up in the ranking as well as Alain Delors.

What's going on on board of Children Action? Did Hervé broke something or is he simply really tired?

And by the way, how does a skipper of a Mini sleeps during the crossing?

Not that bad but very differently from someone living onshore. Actually, the single-handed sailors go back to the rhythm of sleep of our ancestors, the cavemen. The technique is to sleep a small cap nap. This way of sleeping is called the polyphasic sleep. At the time of cavemen, the men could not sleep 6 or 7 hours in a row because of all the predators and other enemies threatening them. They were then sleeping in small slices. A single-handed skipper does exactly the same thing and sleeps in average 4 to 5 hours per day and usually by 20 minutes cat nap during the day and a little bit longer at night, if there are no cargos or no cost to check. To get the rhythm can take from one to two days. It is particularly important to start immediately to get into the rhythm so as not to be overcome with exhaustion because you haven’t had some sleep during the first 48 hours.

Herve can fall asleep very quickly thanks to the relaxation he was using when he was doing cross-country skiing. He wakes up thanks to cooking timer that Muriel offered him and which is very easy to set.

Usually, between the qualification regata, Herve was sleeping with only his sailing gear and without even going into the sleeping bag. We hope that the weather conditions for the Transat were better than those he had in Brittany or in England. The crossing of the doldrums could even have create the reverse problem, i.e. the heat inside the cabin could go well over 90 degrees.

On what does Herve sleep? Muriel has prepared for him a special mattress made of “beans” which takes his shape but is also extremely light. This mattress should also allow him to sleep in the cockpit where it should be cooler than in the cabin once the tropical latitudes are reached.

Now that the arrival is so close, the skipper will less sleep. And beeing so close to the land means encoutering a lot more of cargos. Moreover, it's the ultimate time to make good options and grab some places at the ranking.

Anyway, it looks that Herve will reach his final objective.