Boat master, Olivier Wroczynski was in Madeira to greet the trimaran : "Gitana moored onto a big military nun buoy outside the harbour onto which we had fitted a long line. Once that was done, François Denis and I boarded the boat. Francois climbed straight up the mast to fit the new runner which we had brought with us. That took just an hour. As he was working away 20 metres above deck, I dried the connexions of the electronics and computers. Apparently, in rough seas, through capillary action, water comes up the cable raceways linking the repeaters at the helm station to the central hull. 
Once that had been checked out, everything was in working order once again. We also cleaned and dried the whole boat".
Meanwhile, Lionel and Marc disembarked to take a quick shower and chat with other crews who were also making a quick stop-over there. Foncia (torn staysail and problems with the mainsail halyard), Bonduelle (central rudder damage) and Banque Populaire (problems with one of the float's rudder) got underway once again after having sorted out the various problems (2 hours before Gitana). As for Bayer, she will be grounded until Sunday night at least as part of the fairing on the aft crossbeam is seriously damaged.

Bound for the tradewinds

In spite of this set back, the Gitana Team was perfectly relaxed. Olivier Wroczynski : "Lionel and Marc were very calm about this short stopover. I thought they were very relaxed about the whole thing". Madeira was right on Gitana's course anyway. And the stop only lasted for three hours. Gitana got underway at 12h00 GMT in a 10 knot (18 km/h) south-westerly wind, whereas Foncia, Bonduelle and Banque Populaire had hardly any wind at all when they left harbour. 
Gitana now aims to optimise her weather route to pick up on the warm, steady trades, bound for the Equator.