Vendée Globe: Completion after four years - the well-deserved triumph of Charlie Dalin
Tatjana Pokorny
· 14.01.2025
He crossed the finish line on a freezing cold morning as the sun rose in red and gold. As he himself realised, he had just come through what was probably the coldest night of his entire race around the world. But then he was warmed by the hugs of his loved ones and the cheers of the fans as he crossed the finish line: Charlie Dalin had contested the race of his life and won the Vendée Globe. The dominator of this tenth anniversary edition, who alone Yoann Richomme, who followed in the afternoon, was able to hold his own until the end, sailed around the world non-stop and solo in 64 days, 19 hours, 22 minutes and 49 seconds - a new Vendée Globe fabulous record!
Game, set around the world, victory: Charlie Dalin
The old record set by his compatriot Armel Le Cléac'h ("Banque Populaire VIII") was pulverised by Charlie Dalin with his masterly performance. He beat it by 9 days, 8 hours, 12 minutes and 57 seconds. The new record could stand for a long time thanks to the exceptional skipper, the fast Guillaume Verdier design "Macif Santé Prévoyance" co-designed by Dalin, who studied yacht design, as well as a great team and the generally favourable wind and weather conditions.
Charlie Dalin thanked his team, the fans, the organisers and also his long-time rival Yoann Richomme: "Without him, the record would not have been possible." Shortly after crossing the finish line, Charlie Dalin said: "I am the happiest man in the world today."
I've been waiting a long time for this Vendée Globe, since 28 January 2021 in fact." Charlie Dalin
Never before has a sailor started a Vendée Globe with such determination as Charlie Dalin. He wanted nothing more than the triumph that had so unhappily eluded him at his premiere four years ago. And he got it. He will never forget the night of 27 to 28 January 2021. The première success that eluded him at the time stayed with him for 1448 days, spurring him on, motivating him and whipping him around the world.
Dalin had already crossed the finish line first on 27 January at 7.35 pm on an equally icy evening. But it was someone else who celebrated victory almost eight hours later at 3.19 a.m. on 28 January: Yannick Bestaven. Bestaven was spurred on by a time credit of ten hours and 15 minutes, which the jury had awarded him - as well as other skippers, including Boris Herrmann, in a similar form - for his involvement in the rescue operation for Kevin Escoffier.
Vendée Globe: massive happy ending
After a strongly contested race, Yannick Bestaven had still managed to overtake Dalin with his "Joker". The compatriot thus jeopardised the crowning of Vendée Globe prince Charlie Dalin on the winter night in January 2021. Dalin was around two and a half hours away from victory after the decisions at the green table. Back then, still riding "Apivia", the Vendée Globe runner-up reacted calmly and fairly on the outside, controlling his emotions well.
But inside he agonised for a long time afterwards: "I woke up at night to find the minutes I was missing." He remained the hunter until his second Vendée Globe start, but was also driven by the events of the past. Now he has completed the triumph that was dashed at the first attempt on his second solo around the world. There is hardly anyone who would begrudge the skipper of the "Macif Santé Prévoyance" this.
The Maître Coq sailing team takes its hat off to you." Yannick Bestaven
One of the first congratulations came from See, from Yannick Bestaven. He wrote on LinkedIn under the heading "A title for a champion - VG24 #65": "I told you four years ago, now it's come true... What a race, what a sailor! Congratulations to you and your whole team, this is so well deserved! Enjoy the moment and who knows, maybe you'll be back on the conquest in 2028, the future will tell! In the meantime, we still have a few weeks left at sea... Let's share the end of this adventure." Bestaven sails to the end of the race after retiring outside the competition.
Charlie Dalin was the lighthouse, the dominator and deserved winner of this tenth anniversary edition of the Vendée Globe. He led the classification, which was updated every four hours, a total of 254 times. His closest rival was Yoann Richomme, who led 76 times. Sam Goodchild, who also battled so passionately with Jérémie Beyou for fourth place on the 65th day of racing in the Vendée Globe just 2900 nautical miles from Les Sables-d'Olonne, took the lead 24 times.
A sailing star from a non-sailing family
In the end, even long-time rival Yoann Richomme, who was his equal for long stretches, could only shake Dalin's self-made throne, but could not stop the formidable performance of the winner who grew up in Le Havre. Charlie Dalin is celebrating the greatest success of his career, which began in 1992 with a holiday sailing course off the Breton peninsula of Crozon. His grandparents had rented a holiday home for the family there, where there were sportsmen but no sailors until then.
Until mum Christine enrolled her curious son on a sailing course. She described her offspring's first dinghy experience to the newspaper Oest France as a "revelation for Charlie" that hit him "like a bolt of lightning". He himself later said: "Back then, it was the great freedom that excited me the most:" He enjoyed the fact that there were no predetermined routes when sailing. Just this glittering expanse where you could go anywhere with the wind.
"This invisible force that drives you was magical for me," enthused the Norman from the land of Vikings and sailors about the feeling that became the elixir of life for him. At home, mum enrolled him in the Sport Nautique et Plaisance club in Le Havre. He soon stood out there. Also because he had already steered a 420 single-handed from the trapeze. Dalin's career took off in the city of his birth, where he proudly carried the Olympic flame through the streets of his childhood last summer.
Discovering the Vendée Globe as a teenager
With a growing passion, teenager Charlie Dalin was soon roaming around Le Havre's Transat-Jacques-Vabre jetties. "Every two years, I found myself dreaming among the TJV boats," he recalls. He admired the objects of his growing desire and followed regattas live and spellbound on the radio. At the age of twelve, he consciously watched a Vendée Globe for the first time. It was the third edition that Christophe Augin won on "Geodis".
The elite academy Pôle Finistèrre, the tough Figaro School, where he met many other greats of French offshore sailing and also Yoann Richomme, studying to become a yacht designer at the famous University of Southampton, design engagements right up to the Ocean Race and repeated regatta successes have characterised Charlie Dalin's career.
During his training, Armel Le Cléac'h also took him under his wing, whose record Dalin has now smashed. Dalin and his companion and rival Yoann Richomme share many parallel and very different career paths. Charlie Dalin has a six-year-old son, Oscar, with Perrine, a corporate lawyer and daughter of Pole Finistèrre founder and director Christian Le Pape.
Charlie Dalin: The perfectionist and his team
The career of the man who is more of a competitor than an adventurer: After finishing second in the 2009 Mini-Transat (Pogo2), he competed in the tough Figaro talent class for seven seasons, taking four podium finishes and finishing second twice. Interesting fact: His current Vendée Globe duel with Yoann Richomme began back then. In 2016, Richomme beat Dalin in the Solitaire in the battle for victory by five minutes!
Dalin has twice won the coveted national offshore title "Champion de France Elite de Course au Large" and stepped into the Imoca ring full-time in 2019 with sponsor Apivia and a Transat Jacques Vabre victory. He had already arrived at the top of the world before his current and so successful Revanche solo began. With three Imoca victories in 2022, he underlined his determination to work even harder in the fight for the Vendée Globe crown.
After retiring early from the Transat Jacques Vabre 2023 due to illness, he made a brilliant comeback in the 2024 Vendée Globe year with fourth place in the Transat CIC and victory in the New York Vendée - Les Sables-d'Olonne, catapulting himself back into the role of favourite. Together with his team and the "Macif Santé Prévoyance", which was built by CDK Technologies in collaboration with MerConcept and launched on 24 June 2023, he has now filled this role to the full.
Boris Herrmann's forecast
After Dalin's massive superiority at the Défi Azimut, the last short regatta test before the Vendée Globe, Boris Herrmann had made a prediction that has now come true: "Charlie's dominance in the 48-hour race was breathtaking. It was like a different league, really clean and impressive sailing. If we have conditions like that at the Vendée Globe in the Atlantic up to Cape Town, then he could be dramatically further ahead."
That's how it turned out - at least from Herrmann's point of view: Charlie Dalin reached the Cape of Good Hope in first place with a lead of around 900 nautical miles over the Malizia skipper. He passed Cape Leeuwin in the lead, only having to give way to his eternal rival Yoann Richomme at King's Cape Horn of all places, just under ten minutes behind. But Dalin overtook him again in the South Atlantic and never looked back.
While Dalin mastered the solo course around the three capes four years ago, sailing 28,365 nautical miles at an average speed of 14.6 knots, he has now been able to improve his speed to an incredible17.79 knots over 27,667.91 nautical miles increase. That's how he became the fastest around the world - race record, world record, Dalin's record!
