The first leg of Globe 40, which goes around the world with 8 legs, has begun.
It starts from Tanger (Morocco) and heads for Cap vert off the coast of Dakar, covering about 1,700 miles. In this leg, I participated with Koji Nakagawa, a Japanese co skipper as well as the owner of our team. This competition would validate our efforts over these 2 years.

With the help of the local staff and our teammates, the rudder damaged by the orca attack was replaced in Tanger. Everything ran smoothly for the start day.

On June 26th, the first day of Leg 1 heading for Cap vert, the weather forecast said that a stable north wind would blow 20 to 30 knots in the next 7 days. Under the clear blue sky, the race kicked off with the echoes of airhorn along the coast of Tanger.

There are two waypoints (checkpoints) from Tanger to Cap vert. The first one is the Madeira Island. It is an island in the Atlantic Ocean about 600 miles west of Tanger. On the way there, we have been sailing at a speed of about 12 knots in a crosswise wind while going through the big waves. The hard dodger that was added last winter did a great deal. It helped us keep dry and clean. Comparing to other teams who were badly wet by the waves, we did not even need to wear a jacket, which saved our energy.

On the third day, we reached the Madeira Island first. Other boats chased us by a small margin.
The Madeira Island is about 2,000 meters above sea level, and wind blows about 50 miles in the leeward side of the island. Considering the impact of the weak wind and being under pressure to be chased by the following boat, we decided to make a wide turn around the island.
When we reached the south side of the island, we were stuck in a windless zone for about 2 hours. However, the wind came in and the boat started running again.
The following boat selected a route inside us and completely stalled in the shadow of the island. Although they were only 5 miles behind us when they were closest to us, we were able to distance ourselves from them more than 30 miles and pass through the Madeira Island.

The second waypoint is the Canary Islands, 300 miles south of Madeira.
From here, we fully used the spinnaker to sail fast and went to the south with a speed of about 15 knots!
On the fourth night, we would pass through the Canary Islands which are also islands with high mountains like the Madeira Islands and are well known that strong winds blow around. There was a gust of up to 40 knots when we passed through the area between Tenerife and Gran Canaria.
If wind changes can be predicted, we can adjust accordingly. The more you push, the faster you can run. However, the way we sail is to keep the boat running stably without any trouble.

After that, although there were kinds of problems such as oil leaks from the motor and water leaks from the hatch, we repaired them and successfully arrived at Cap vert at the top. We have finished Leg 1 in 7 days 2 hours 24 minutes! We beat the second place by more than 150 miles and felt rewarded after 2 years of hard training.

Leg 1 was a good warm-up for the race of 30,000 miles and we really enjoyed this long sailing after a long time.The other teams are very friendly, exchanging information and helping each other. Now,we are preparing for the second leg at Cap vert.

The next leg is about 7,500 miles. It will be a very harsh sailing since we will cross Cape Town where is in winter right now, but we will try our best to finish every leg and come back to France in next March.
It is such a long journey, but we hope you will enjoy this big adventure with us.
Thank you for your support!

The Republic of Cabo Verde is an archipelago off the continent of Africa, which consists of 15 islands including 5 uninhabited ones. We finished Leg 1 and anchored our boat in São Vicente, the second largest in the country.

There aren't many big buildings. However, the streets are very lively and filled with music since people in this country love music and like to hang out even in the night. Music events are also held in squares on weekends.

We stayed here for about two weeks and got boat maintenance from ropes to engines and electrical equipment before Leg 2, which is the longest in the whole race.

Besides us, many cruising boats are anchored at Marina Mindelo, going from France to Africa or returning to the Mediterranean Sea. Many sailors visit here as an important supply station. The staff were really kind and helped us a lot. MILAI is ready for the next leg.

The next destination is Mauritius. We are looking forward to the new journey!