You can tell that he is enjoying his days at home despite a flood of appointments, dozens of interviews and the natural demands of his four-month-old daughter Marie-Lou: Boris Herrmann is currently looking forward to his Vendée Globe premiere in Hamburg. He will be here for a good week before travelling back to Les Sables d'Olonne in France. Herrmann will then spend the last week before the start of the solo circumnavigation in self-isolation, as will the other 26 skippers and six female skippers for reasons of coronavirus protection, before the starting signal for the ninth edition of the legendary race around the world is given on 8 November.
Herrmann appears relaxed as he walks through Hamburg's HafenCity. He walks through his neighbourhood with open eyes and knows how to tell stories about the people and buildings he passes. It is easy to see that he enjoys living here with his wife Birte and daughter "Malou". A pretty green park opposite and the kindergarten around the corner provide a welcome balance to the modern concrete architecture, which is interrupted here and there by historic buildings and romantic bridges. Herrmann will soon be saying goodbye to this homely environment for almost three months. He is swapping his cosy bed for a narrow bunk in a sparse carbon-fibre housing that will carry him around the world - as safely and quickly as possible. Herrmann estimates that the upcoming ninth edition of the sea marathon can be completed at an average of one knot faster than the last one. The new futuristic foilers are likely to beat the existing record. The current Vendée Globe record was set by the last winner Armel Le Cléac'h with 74 days, 3 hours and 36 minutes.
In the Hamburg sunshine, Herrmann talks about the years of preparation for the upcoming race of his life. He talks about how, as a teenager, he was captivated by watching an Arte documentary about circumnavigations and records and imagined what it would be like to sail around the world in one of these high-speed ocean-going yachts. He has since circumnavigated the globe in pairs, competed in countless high-calibre regattas and earned his spurs on all the world's oceans. Herrmann has also achieved remarkable things solo. But the historic first participation of a German skipper in the toughest sailing test for man and material marks his first solo circumnavigation.
Boris Herrmann approaches it "with a penchant for paranoid pedantry" regarding his boat "Seaexplorer" (he says so himself), with great passion and a kitbag full of expectations. He is also attracted by "the unknown that awaits me out there". Goal number one for Herrmann, like most of the participants in this adventure, is to arrive - an understandable wish given the average failure rate of 46 per cent so far. He formulates goal number two cautiously: "A place in the top ten would be nice."
InYACHT 23 we report in detail on the Vendée Globe and Boris Herrmann's preparations for the solo race around the world.
Legendary ocean sailor, 1989/1990 premiere participant in the Vendée Globe, then rescuer of the capsized Philippe Poupon and brilliant narrator: Loïck Peyron guides us through this North Sails clip on the subject of the "Vendée Globe adventure"
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
