This Sunday at 3 pm, Ireland's sole entry, Tom Dolan and the 36 other sailors competing in the 55th Solitaire du Figaro Paprec will take the start of the first leg, a 615-mile chunk of racetrack starting in Le Havre and culminating in Gijón, via the Wolf Rock lighthouse off south-west England.

“The first part of the race is fairly clear. We know what’s going to happen: we’re going to exit the English Channel, punching into the wind and currents. We’re going to get shaken about a bit, so we’ll get straight down to business,” commented the skipper of Smurfit Kappa – Kingspan shortly before docking out of Le Havre. “We’re going to start off with a good old all-nighter,” explained the Irish sailor, who we know is always very at ease in tough conditions, as well as being insensitive to seasickness. “However, this section of the race won’t come with the risk of big gaps opening up in the fleet. That will come further down the track. In the Bay of Biscay, I’m expecting to see the fleet split apart in every direction,” said the sailor. Indeed, the overall outlook in this area is set to be fairly uncertain.

A rather inactive cold front and especially a ridge of high pressure are likely to really stir up the mix. “We’re bound to tie our minds in knots. We’ll need to be completely lucid to comprehend how the weather is evolving fully,” added Tom with a quiet confidence. “I feel good and I’m pleased that the game is due to really open up on this first leg,” concludes the sailor who, according to the latest routing, is likely to make the finish line in Spain on Thursday afternoon, after exactly four days at sea.