Vendée Globe: Transat protest rejected - Oliver Heer remains ahead in the race for the wildcard

What was significant about this protest because of rule 41 was that it was lodged by the organiser, not by the Transat CIC participants - not even by those who are competing most directly with Ollie Heer for the wild card for the last open starting place for the Vendée Globe.

So the solidarity among the skippers still seems to be intact. Or was it self-protection that nobody else complained about a breach of the rules? The fact is that it was a borderline case.

Did Oliver Heer receive unauthorised help, or was it a legal crisis intervention?

How here and here described in detail, a phone call between Ollie and his mental coach Wolfgang Jenewein was the reason for the protest. In it, the management consultant, who works in Switzerland, gave the sailor tips on how to deal with the overabundance of problems caused by a patent jibe and subsequent capsize on board his Imoca.

Heer was at his limit like never before in his career, during which he worked for several years as boat captain for British offshore star Alex Thompson. He had a boat full of water, initially no electricity, consequently no navigation, extremely limited opportunities to make phone calls to his team and, on top of that, several damages to the deck and his sails. Never before had he been "so down and out", he said later.

Because his team was worried about him, they asked Jenewein to encourage Ollie as soon as he was able to make satellite calls again. It was more of a trauma intervention than performance-enhancing advice, more counselling than performance-boosting.

Wolfgang Jenewein's recommendation was not to dwell on worries or lamentations, but to concentrate all his energy on working through the problems step by step according to their urgency and importance. The skipper wrote the quintessence of the conversation on his cabin wall: "Embrace this SHIT".

The organisers saw this as a possible breach of Rule 41, which prohibits outside help unless it is of a technical or medical nature. It is a frequently recurring dilemma, because where does "help" begin?

Does giving encouragement already fall under this, or is it still considered legitimate? Would the advice have been less critical if it had come from someone in Ollie's circle of friends or family instead of an experienced mental coach?

It is also a fact that the Imoca skippers do not live in a monastery of silence on their long, lonely courses. Thanks to an always-on satellite connection and WhatsApp, they are in constant contact with their team members, sponsors and relatives. If the conversation had been considered a breach of the rules and penalised, it would have sent shockwaves through the class. Because with such a strict interpretation, practically every skipper would be breaking the rules.

However, the jury ruled in favour of the sport. It recognised a technical and mental emergency that not only justifies support, but expressly permits it. It therefore dismissed the protest as unfounded.

Oliver Heer's reaction to the jury's decision

Ollie Heer expressed his happiness and relief in an interview with YACHT late this afternoon. He had "a pretty good feeling" from the start that he would not be disqualified because of the call. "But of course it could still have been the case that an example was made of me."

This did not happen. Instead, the communication with his mental coach was assessed as a "medical assessment" in accordance with the rules. Heer's unembellished self-assessment illustrates just how overwhelmed he was by the consequences of the capsize: "At that moment, I had the mental capacity of a five-year-old." In the middle of the North Atlantic, still 1,300 nautical miles away from the finish line, he found himself sitting on a dysfunctional 60-foot boat with a handheld compass on the tiller until he could no longer keep himself awake. "I was totally overwhelmed."

He is just as happy about the jury's words as he is about the encouragement from other skippers. "Boris (Herrmann, the ed.) was the first person to send me a WhatsApp when he heard about the protest." The man from Hamburg wrote to him to say that he thought it was completely unfounded.

Despite the positive outcome, there remains a latent concern that all Vendée participants probably share. "It was a lesson for me," says Ollie Heer. "There is simply a large grey area when it comes to outside help. That's why I'll be even more careful in future than I have been in the past about who I talk to on the phone about which topics."

The Swiss remains in pole position for the wildcard as the 40th participant in the Vendée Globe after the protest was rejected. He has clocked up more qualifying miles than James Harayda and Francis Guiffant, who follow him in second place. Now he has to worry one last time. But his participation, which will be decided on 2 July, is actually just a formality now that the protest about the Transat CIC is off the table.

"We are now going into the refit and preparation with the mindset that I will get the starting place," says Ollie Heer. He sounds so full of confidence again, as if the knock-down never happened. He has also long since removed the slogan on his bulkhead. The only thing missing is a main sponsor. But he should be able to find one after this double comeback.