Last night, Olivier de Kersauson and his team aboard Geronimo hooked up with the southern edge of the depression, as forecast. It seems that weather forecasts for the North Atlantic are much more accurate than those for other less frequented waters. After a 60th day in which they covered 314 nautical miles across the southern section of the Azores High, the 11-man crew are now enjoying a rare day of surfing.

As the skipper confirmed by radio at 12:00 GMT today: “We’re heading for southern Ireland under gennaker, and surfing well at between 23 and 27 kts. Geronimo isn’t suffering at all in these excellent sea conditions and we can really press on without having too much concern over the state of the beam. It’s fantastic to be able to helm the boat like this. It’s been a month since we’ve been able to surf properly. A lot of us are on deck and the atmosphere is electric, it’s something of a rebirth.”

Despite the fact that Geronimo keeps all non-biodegradable waste on board, she is still lighter by around one tonne of consumables after 60 days circling the globe, and is therefore much livelier – it’s almost as if she has finally caught scent of home.

By midday today, she was no more than 1,300 sea miles from the line as the crow flies, but when we take account of her obligatory detour to 50° North, the total distance left to cover is more like 1,500 nautical miles, which will require her to average over 15 knots. It’s certainly within the reach of these 11 Frenchmen as long as they have a little wind.