Open 60 Skandia skipper, Nick Moloney, having sailed over 2,600 miles has approximately 1,700 miles to go to Vendée Globe finish port of Les Sables d’Olonne after 12 days into his solo trip from Brazil to France on his mission to finish his solo circumnavigation of the planet.

This trip could not be in greater contrast to the full-on race of the Vendée Globe from which he had to retire after losing his keel off Rio de Janeiro: “I am pretty stress-free at the moment which is new to me and solo sailing…” The Atlantic is a busy place right now with boats returning from the Transat Jacques Vabre race and various charter boats heading south for the Caribbean winter season – Nick ended up on a VHF chat show with the guests of a tall ship yesterday!

The situation with Moloney shows that light winds dominated his pace since the weekend, thanks to the activity of tropical storm Epsilon to the north-west but he’s up and running again now making 10kts north: “The swell from Epsilon arrived which made life difficult for a few hours. I thought I would break something with the violent slapping of sails across the boat in light winds and huge waves…”

Latest weather routing shows that Skandia should enjoy four to five days of good downwind sailing in no more than 20 knots of breeze. The aim is to head north to sail around the top of a high pressure system off Portugal and the breeze will swing from the current south-easterlies into the south, south-west and eventually blow from the west.

Arrival at the French port of Les Sables d’Olonne is still another 8-10 days away but Moloney will hopefully arrive by 15 December in time to get home to his family in Australia for Christmas