Davies in the thick of it

Skandia leading the Rookie Class

At the 0730 BST poll this morning, Skandia was polled in 13th place overall just ahead of Michel Desjoyeaux and last year's overall Solitaire winner Kito de Pavant and is currently leading Rookie. The 42 boat fleet have raced approximately 90 miles since the start from Bilbao at 1400 BST yesterday.

The conditions have been light from the north and the fleet, as expected, are closely bunched together on this upwind leg as they progress north across the Bay of Biscay on a direct course to round Belle Ille before heading to the finish at La Rochelle.

Leading the fleet is multihull rockstar Loick Peyron (Fujifilm) but right behind him by just 0.28 miles is Alain Gautier (Foncia) followed by Leg 1 winner Yann Elies (Groupe Générali Assurances) in third 1.05 miles behind Peyron... Only just over 3 miles separate the top 10 boats that include Marc Thiercelin (4th) and Jérémie Beyou (6th) and under 10 miles separates 41 Figaros with the exception of Spaniard Unai Basurko trailing the leader by 17 miles.

In the Rookie division Sam is leading for the first time in the Solitaire du Figaro... Ahead of Leg 1 winning Rookie Marc Emig who is 21st overall and just 1 mile behind Skandia. Again, Dutchman Sander Bakker is making a strong performance as third Rookie and 26th overall. But Yves Le Blevec is not having such a good race so far currently back in 36th place. One thing is for sure, with the fleet this tightly packed together things will change as the skippers search for shifts and thermals as they close on the French coast.

Having studied Sam's sleep patterns on the first leg of the Solitaire du Figaro, Claudio Stampi, sleep management consultant to the Offshore Challenges Sailing Team, has devised the optimum sleep programme for Sam to utilise over the next three legs: "Sam appears to be a morning person which on the plus side means she can fall asleep quickly but also wake up quickly and be fully alert as well as feeling refreshed from just short naps. But the down side is Sam has vulnerable times ie low alertness around sunrise, between 1400-15-- and at 2300 which is her normal time to sleep at night." 'Morning people' require greater 'circadian consistency' which means they should try and follow a regular sleep pattern as there circadian clock is less flexible than that of an evening person.

Claudio has developed a sleeping schedule specifically for Sam to try to sleep between 4 to 4.5 hours in 24 and never to go below two hours: "I have suggested Sam try for three napping windows per day - two of these windows she should stick to at the same time in each 24 hour cycle if she can and the third window is more flexible. These napping windows are scheduled to start around 1430-1500 and the other at 2300. For each of these napping opportunities, Sam should try 'cluster-napping' which is essentially sleeping for 10-20 minutes then waking up to check everything is okay before napping again and this process runs for about 1.5 hours." The third 'flexible' sleep time is between 0200 and 1100 but, if possible, it should be taken around sunrise. This system will ensure at least four hours of sleep, conditions permitting, each day.