Armel Le Cleac'h's whole life unfolds before us. A life with a single goal: to win. This Breton sailor, the last winner of the Vendée Globe, does not deny his nickname "the Jackal". Here is a sailor who never gives up, who leaves nothing to chance, always with the aim of being first.
Since his first Optimist cruises and the importance of family cruises on his Daddy's Melody, Armel has never stopped succeeding. Each of his mistakes, each of his missteps, he analyzes it in order to put it to good use and get back on his feet stronger.
In this book he describes this progressive but steady climb to the top in the Figaro (2 victories out of 10 participations!) and then in the IMOCA class (2 times 2 e then winner of the 2016 Vendée Globe).
The skipper doesn't give too much away, doesn't talk about his suffering, nor does he drown in technical details. He sums up his races by explaining when he held the cursor at the right moment to succeed in winning. We discover, for example, that he completely disinfected his boat before the Vendée Globe and that one week before the start, he avoided kissing or shaking hands to avoid carrying germs. A sailor who leaves nothing to chance!
The importance of his entourage, with his wife and two children, is also highlighted in the book. We also discover Armel's passion for Monseigneur Hervé-Marie Le Cleac'h, his uncle bishop in the Marquesas Islands, whose meeting marked him forever. But apart from this small lifting of the sails on a more intimate part of the character, the book only describes the fabulous nautical itinerary of this exceptional sailor.
"The Price of Victory" retraces the 15 years of relentless racing that it took Armel Le Cleac'h to reach his Holy Grail: The Vendée Globe. His first attempt was to learn and discover sailing in the south; for the second, which was passed over to the older category, he did not succeed in transforming it; it was not until the 3 e ...with a knife in his teeth, in jackal mode, that he did everything he could for this victory.
The price of victory - Armel Le cleac'h
- Editions Robert Laffont
- 266 pages
- 13.5 x 21.5 cm
- 19.00 euros
