After three weeks making headway under jury rig across an Indian Ocean which has done nothing to facilitate the sailor's task, Loïck Peyron isn't concealing either his delight or his satisfaction about the imminent landfall.

It is worth pointing out once again the solidarity of seafarers in such tricky situations as these: Olivier Wroczynski, specially rushed out to Australia by the Gitana Team to ensure the arrival of the skipper of Gitana Eighty runs smoothly and to organise the technical logistics on station, will himself be assisted by Mike Golding's shore crew and Dominique Wavre in person. Both of these two skippers, the solo English skipper and the Swiss sailor, made Perth a few days beforehand and are still on site.

As soon as Gitana Eighty comes alongside in the port she will be thoroughly inspected by the local customs prior to obtaining her transpire. This will enable her to pass through to the hauling out zone, just a few miles away, where the shore crew will proceed with the necessary operations to get her onto the hard. Midway through January she is scheduled to be loaded onto a container ship. Meantime Loïck Peyron will spend just a matter of hours on Australian soil before he flies back to France.