What an incredible night! Ambrogio has won the Vendée Arctique, in his first solo IMOCA race and aboard "Allagrande Mapei", after having been more than 200 miles behind Sam Goodchild on "MACIF", who had dominated the race from the start.

The low pressure system in the Bay of Biscay ended up being a friend: Sam found himself caught in it first, choosing a route further south to look for a favourable passage. Ambrogio and Violette, in pursuit, instead stayed further north and managed to take advantage of the thermal low's eastward shift, staying in the wind for longer. This small "open door" was enough for "Allagrande Mapei" to catch up with "MACIF" and exploit the lateral separation to the north to overtake it. From there it was a long night-time match race of gybes, with Ambrogio skilfully positioning himself between his rival and the finish, despite not having a gennaker on board, which forced him into tighter angles and a longer route on the reach. Without ever losing focus, Ambrogio stretched his lead to more than six miles by the finish, and had this to say about the race:

"Right now I'm really amazed by this huge stroke of luck I had. But I think I was also pretty opportunistic in exploiting the small door MACIF left open — we gave it a shot and it went really, really well. The race was wonderful. So many things happened: it was an incredible journey. I saw so many different islands — the Faroes, Iceland, Ireland, Scotland. Crossing the Arctic Circle, on the other hand, wasn't very symbolic, because in the end it was just a number to reach. Either way, this is a race where I feel like I managed myself pretty well — I never really went over the edge. Partly because at the start it felt like a bit of a struggle, I couldn't quite settle in behind a boat that had so many problems. The first two days were pretty trying: I had a lot of electronics issues, a blackout, I had to go underwater to free the boat from that cursed buoy. So, all sorts of things happened, and that had knocked my confidence a bit. Then, little by little, the boat and I found our rhythm again. To the point that I decided to take that route west of Ireland. I chose it precisely because I didn't feel right about going through the inside: with a boat that wasn't in perfect shape, if even a small problem had come up in such a delicate passage, it would have been a disaster. There was a lot of traffic, a lot of wind, the traffic separation zones — which are exactly the ones Élodie ended up in, and for which she got a twelve-hour penalty. I wanted to avoid all of that. I'd never made such a cautious choice in a race before, and yet it didn't weigh on me at all. If anything, I realised I didn't want to do it, and so I didn't. I was very sure of myself, very sure of what I was capable of, and the boat and I really understood each other."

Thank you, Bogi, for teaching all of us a lesson. A lesson in patience, staying focused despite the hardships of the climb towards the Arctic Circle; in caution, being the first to choose the safer route, balancing risk and reward, with the calm of someone who has a clear long-term goal in mind; and in tenacity — the kind that didn't give up a single mile even when the fleet leader was far away and even third place seemed at risk, and the kind that made you dive into the water off Ireland three, four, five times to free a buoy that had tried to stop your boat. Thank you too for that dive, and for the cry of relief when you were finally able to set off again.

And finally, you showed us that the whole journey — with its difficulties, setbacks and solutions — exists to make you ready for that one moment when your opportunity arrives. An opportunity that is never guaranteed or predictable in life. But when it comes, you have to recognise it, seize it with clarity, and bring the result home. It's in that always-precarious balance between madness and meticulousness that we saw, once again, the meaning of this sport.