To the cheers of more than 100,000 spectators in Les Sables d'Olonne, François Gabart on board "Macif" became the youngest winner of the Vendée when he finished his race around the globe shortly after 3pm today, Sunday afternoon. He crossed the finish line after 78 days, 2 hours and 16 minutes, just five hours ahead of his rival Armel Le Cléac'h ("Banque Populaire"). Just a few minutes later, Gabart's wife climbed on board at sea and they both hugged each other for several minutes. Just six months before the start, the Frenchman had become the father of a son. Later, as he entered the channel at Les Sables d'Olonne, the likeable winner visibly wrestled with tears for a long time before simply giving in to the jubilation. A little later, his mentor Michel Desjoyeaux climbed on board and congratulated his protégé before Gabart lit the obligatory flare of the signalling flares.
The victory of the 29-year-old Frenchman is also a historic achievement. This is the first time that the skipper of a monohull has managed to stay under the magical 80-day mark, which has haunted the minds of many sailors since Jules Verne's classic "Around the World in 80 Days". At the beginning of the 1990s, when the Jules Verne Trophy was launched, there was already a run on the record. Prize money was offered to the first crew who managed to sail around the world in less than 80 days. At the time, nobody believed that the record could ever be broken with a monohull, so the era of giant cats and tris began. It took four years for the first crew to achieve the breakthrough: Bruno Peyron and his team mates on the 85-foot cat "Commodore Explorer" were the first to break the magic mark in 1994. Since then, monster tris such as "Groupama 3" and "Banque Populaire V" beyond the 100-foot limit have lowered the figure to just under 45 days (see chart below).
So now "Macif" is the first monohull in the history of sailing to stay under 80 days. Gabart and Armel Le Cléac'h beat the mark by a margin that hardly anyone would have expected. At the last Vendée Globe, Michel Desjoyeaux came close with around 84 days and 3 hours, but the fact that this year's winner took almost a week off his time is quite remarkable.
A fierce duel around the globe
The driving force behind the best performance was the relentless battle for the lead, which the two Frenchmen fought almost from the first to the last mile around the globe. Gabart took the lead shortly after the start, but was unable to maintain it for long stretches, for example when Le Cléac'h took the lead after the Canary Islands and defended it tenaciously until they entered the Southern Ocean. Although Jean-Pierre Dick, Vincent Riou and Bernard Stamm were able to keep up for a long time, the race then showed its relentless side: Riou retired due to a collision with flotsam, Stamm due to technical faults, and Jean-Pierre Dick lost contact with the same weather system as his opponents shortly before Australia after a problem with a sail. The result was an enormous gap that quickly approached the 1000 nautical mile mark.
Then it was onlythe Duel. And what a duel it was. François Gabart and Armel Le Cléac'h gave each other nothing for around 27,000 nautical miles. They crossed the route between South Africa and Australia at a new record speed. Both know each other well from the Figaro circus and even trained together a lot. Le Cléac'h occasionally tried to force a preliminary decision by making tactically risky decisions, such as sailing around high pressure zones in the Indian Ocean, sailing far, far away from his opponents. But Gabart kept coming close and eventually took the lead again in the Indian Ocean. He almost always seemed to be able to gain that little, decisive edge in terms of boat speed. In an interview, his mentor Michel Desjoyeaux attributed this in part to a very flat reacher ("blast reacher"), which the skipper of "Macif" had developed for wind conditions of around 35 knots.
Le Cléac'h fought, tried to take every major spin better, but François Gabart countered again and again with confidence and regained the lead. Up to Cape Horn, the battle still looked so even that a victory for Le Cléac'h seemed just as possible. But then, when rounding a high shortly after Cape Horn, he tacked to the west away from his opponent and Gabart chose an easterly course. From then on, the "Macif" skipper slowly but surely sailed further and further away, extending his lead past the equator to over 100 nautical miles for the first time. Perhaps his boat is simply the faster one, especially on the wind, or perhaps it was a less than optimal or defective sail on Le Cléac'hs - we will probably know in a few days when the two skippers reveal their cards for the first time at the press conferences. Shortly before the finish there were also rumours of problems with the ballast tanks of Le Cléac'hs "Banque Populaire". However, there is no doubt that the two skippers pushed themselves to an enormously high level and still had their equipment perfectly under control, so that they were spared the crucial minor defects that ultimately threw Jean-Pierre Dick or Bernard Stamm out of the race for victory.
Another reason for the tremendous speed set by this year's Vendée winner is the vastly improved autopilots, as his retired fellow competitor Vincent Riou ("PRB") explained on television at the finish. These now make it possible to leave the boats to their own devices at 20 to 25 knots boat speed without any problems, so that the skipper can regenerate better or analyse the tactics.
The sunny boy against the Breton fighter
The 29-year-old Gabart proved to be surprisingly relaxed and cheerful throughout the race. At first it was thought that he was putting on an act to demotivate his opponents, but towards the end it became increasingly clear that the youngster was simply having incredible fun racing around the world. While his opponents complained about the strain, looked tired and exhausted in video conferences and posted pictures online in which they looked like pale zombies, François Gabart always looked fresh. He will never forget when, after his 24-hour record (534.48 nautical miles), he told the stunned interviewers from the regatta media that he had slept really well because the car pilot had done most of the work. He enjoyed the fight with Le Cléac'h, he said again and again, seeing it as fun, not as stress. The time at sea was the best thing for him, who had already sailed with his parents for a year on their own boat across the Canary Islands to the Caribbean and back to Europe when he was seven years old. In contrast, his opponent Le Cléac'h appeared extremely tense in some films and videos and seemed to be almost determined to win, which earned him the unflattering comparison of "Darth Vader versus the Sunnyboy" in the British media.
The fastest boat in the field
One of the many clues that suggests that François Gabart is not just the sunny boy who comes across so relaxed in the pictures is his technical background. After all, he has a degree in engineering and is regarded as a meticulous, almost perfectionist technician who left nothing to chance when preparing his boat. He also sailed probably the best boat in the fleet: the "Foncia", built in 2011 and personally optimised by Grand Master Michel Desjoyeaux, on which he started the Barcelona World Race together with him, but an early mast breakage knocked them out of the race. Nevertheless, Gabart reported not a single major technical problem on board. Perhaps a bit of tactics to avoid giving his opponents an advantage, but certainly an indication of flawless preparation.
His sailing career was short but steep: from the Opti to the Europe (both with championship titles), on to the Tornado, then on to the Figaro class, in which he finished second behind Armel Le Cléac'h in 2010. Finally, the leap into the supreme discipline of single-handed sailing, the Open 60s. Gabart had won the major skipper talent competition organised by his sponsor Macif, a large insurance company. In 2008, he joined the team that later took over the "Foncia" from Michel Desjoyeaux. He was successful right from the start: a second, fourth and then first place in transatlantic races. Only the big fugue, a circumnavigation, was missing from his CV - one of the reasons why many saw Le Cléac'h, who was sailing his second Vendée Globe and came third last time, as the front runner. At the start of the race in November, François Gabart was regarded as a huge talent on a super boat, but nobody knew how much of it he could call upon. Now we know: 100 per cent.
Andreas Fritsch
Editor Travel
