Visibly relieved, Thomson threw up his arms, clenched his fists and was delighted with his own strong performance, which had also earned the respect of his opponent Armel Le Cléac'h yesterday.
The Briton was almost excited to answer the first questions while still on the boat. The French journalist is able to restrain himself for a few minutes, then comes the crucial question: "Will you be back in 2020?" Thomson doesn't hesitate for a second: "Third place, second place - next time I'd like to be one place better! If I can organise a project, I'll take part again."
The exhausted skipper explains: "I've slept maybe five hours in total in the last three days, and not at all in the last 24 hours. The problems with the autopilot and AIS had really stressed him out.
He hardly wanted to answer questions about the broken foil: "I don't really want to talk about it anymore. I had so much time to think about it, of course there were dark hours. The biggest challenge was to push away the frustration and stay positive. I didn't enjoy the race as much as the one before."
He said of the winner Armel Le Cléac'h: "He deserved to win, he sailed consistently, like a machine. He is a modest, nice person and a great opponent. He has a great team."
Less than an hour later at the press conference on the jetty, winner Armel Le Cléac'h congratulated him and said: "Next time it's your turn!"
When asked what it was like to be travelling with the broken foil, he replied: "It's as if I had sailed two boats, I loved it on one bow and hated it on the crippled starboard bow. The question of how it would have turned out with the foil intact is impossible to answer. It would have been a different race, but you never know in the Vendée!"
Now here in the harbour in second place, it's hard to imagine that the boat was almost lost just over a year ago. "If someone had told me back then that you would finish second in the Vendée, it would have sounded ridiculous. My team did a great job."
Andreas Fritsch
Editor Travel
