He wanted to do it. Round the world. Alone. Non-stop. Just get there. Now it's done. At the weekend, Frenchman Sébastien Destremau celebrated his successful Vendée premiere in the start and finish harbour of Les Sables d'Olonne. 50 days after the winner, the all-round sailor and sports journalist finished his 124-day trip around the world. At the weekend, the Frenchman, who had become thin due to weeks of food rationing, reported on the exertions, the challenges, the technical problems and the fulfilment of his mission, in which he was more successful than eleven competitors who had had to give up.
"I'm very proud today," said the 52-year-old at his first press conference on solid ground. Because he had problems rowing as a young man, he had once opted for sailing. "That's how I became a professional." Destremau already had an Olympic campaign and several starts in the America's Cup and the Volvo Ocean Race behind him before his Vendée premiere. The solo race around the world was the fourth summit he wanted to conquer. He achieved this with his boat "TechnoFirst - FaceOcean".
In his first assessment, Destremau said: "The Vendée is a race for people with mental problems. There is this enormous pressure to want to finish the race at all costs. You feel it day and night. Because it could be over at any moment. Then there are the temporary problems, which can be very difficult. But you can deal with them. When you're alone on a boat, you can do what you want. You can sing if you want to. Or cry if you feel like it. I cried every day between the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn. However long this race lasts for you, you have to make do with what you have with you. You have no choice. You have to find a solution. If not, you have to give up. So you find an inner strength to cope with these things. I'm not a good mechanic. I'm not good at a lot of things. But I've managed to fix things when I've had to. I have no idea how I managed that. I'm also not someone who likes to be alone. I never really wanted to sail single-handed. It was the difficulty of the Vendée that motivated me to do it. This is a huge victory for me! You can win the Vendée or you can finish it. Finishing it is a victory for me. Armel finished the Vendée 50 days before me. So I don't think I sailed that well...(laughs). But I was better than those who couldn't finish the race. The race itself is only a small part of the adventure. For us, the Vendée Globe doesn't just last four months, but four years with everything you have to do for it."
As the last to finish, Destremau left no doubt about his attitude to the toughest sailing test for man and material: "Congratulations to the winners! Armel and Alex have sailed a great race. An incredible achievement! The people who greeted me in Les Sables d'Olonne certainly wanted to celebrate the adventurer rather than the athlete. I didn't treat this Vendée as a race, but as an adventure that I wanted to share with others."
Here to the final classification of the eighth Vendée Globe 2016/2017.
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
