Learn French: Nous avions maintenu le cap malgré les vagues gigantesques. - We had maintained the course despite the gigantic waves.

The preposition malgré means "despite" or "in spite of." It is followed directly by a noun or a pronoun, which in this case is the noun phrase les vagues gigantesques. You don't use it with a conjugated verb. If you wanted to use a verb to say "although the waves were gigantic," you would need a different expression like bien que.

Why is the verb avions maintenu instead of avons maintenu?

Nous avions maintenu is in the plus-que-parfait (pluperfect) tense, which translates to "we had maintained." It is formed using the imperfect tense of the helping verb avoir (nous avions) plus the past participle (maintenu). It is used to show that this action happened in the past before another past event. If it were nous avons maintenu (passé composé), it would just mean "we maintained" or "we have maintained."

Why does the adjective gigantesques come after the noun vagues if it describes size?

While it is true that short, common adjectives describing size (like grand or petit) usually go before the noun, gigantesque is a longer, more expressive adjective. Because of this, it follows the standard French rule of placing the adjective after the noun.

Is maintenir le cap only used when talking about boats?