‘You have to live your dreams not dream your life away’
That was the maxim that drove Manuel Cousin to leave his life as an executive selling forklift trucks to major accounts with Toyota, to move from his native Normandy to Les Sables d’Olonne and pursue new goals ocean racing.
Cousin, 53, reached the pinnacle of that new life today when he completed the 24,365 nautical miles Vendée Globe, crossing the finish line off Les Sables d’Olonne at 07:35:40 hrs UTC this morning in 23^rd position. After struggling at times with a cracked rudder and more recently keel ram damage, Cousin’s elapsed time on Groupe SETIN is 103d 18hrs 15m. He sailed an actual course of 29,116 nautical miles at an average of 11.69kts. 

Manuel Cousin due in Saturday morning for 23^rd..... Huusela’s Stark wins sponsorship awards
Joschke and Davies slow to avoid worst of storms

Manuel Cousin, the 52 year French skipper who retired from his role as an executive with the Toyota motor group to pursue a career ocean racing will bring his IMOCA Groupe SÉTIN across the finish line of the Vendée Globe tomorrow morning – estimated for between 0500hrs and 1000hrs UTC – and return back into Les Sables d’Olonne the town where he has lived for 12 years.

Man Cousin who is due to finish tomorrow morning, spoke on the radio call recently"It's going better this morning. It's not very relaxing because there are still two fairly big depressions to get through so I have to remain cautious and vigilant because the weather is unsettled, there are a lot of squalls. I am being careful, but I feel better than 2-3 days ago when I was still quite stressed about a lot of things. Now I try to take advantage of these final days of racing. I am trying to relive in my head what I have managed to do, like running it back as a film.

Sam Davies and Isabelle Joschke are completing their solo round the world missions together, out of the race. With their compromised boats which need looking after, they have slowed down to let a big low pass in front of them. Sam spoke to Race HQ this morning and is super proud of her friend Miranda Merron who she first sailed with more than 20 years ago....

Speaking from on board the famous STARK Imoca this morning Finnish skipper Ari Huusela now has the 250 nautical miles wide ridge of high pressure to negotiate before the Azores, and today he will pass under the 2000 nautical miles to the finish. He is starting to find the continually changing ETA a bit frustrating but he says......  “Life is good, as always I am super happy, I am approaching the high pressure zone of light winds and it is quite wide and complicated and so I will struggle through it. I have 11 kts of wind and I am doing 11kts and so it is quite OK right now. Hopefully I will keep a small bit of wind, but I have been following Alexia, she is going quite well and has been going seven knots or something so it is fine right now.