For me, the theme of the senses is really at the heart of sailing racing. The open sea is a very favourable terrain for awakening them. Modern life puts them to sleep, while nature stimulates them.
That's also what motivates me when I go out to sea: feeling in tune with the elements. With the time of life, the present moment. When I'm alone at sea, when I see the sun rise, spend the day, the sun set, the moon show up, then the stars shine, I feel time stretching out... differently than elsewhere. With space, I feel that too. Whereas in a plane, in a few hours you can be on the other side of the earth, I, with my boat, even if it can be fast, take days and days to cross an inlet or an ocean. I saw the immensity of the seas! These are sensations that put me back in my place, my modest place, on this planet. They remind me that I am not much in the end, that I am just - but still! - a part of this whole chain!
The view
I remember a very special moment I had in the Gulf of St. Lawrence where navigation is not easy. It was during the Quebec-Saint-Malo crewed transat. We were fighting against the elements: a disarming wind, 4° water... but above all a thick fog. Of course this place is known to be very foggy, but here... Not having a horizon when you're on a boat is not the most reassuring thing! In short, we were not enthusiastic about these conditions. We were finally going to pass between Saint-Pierre Island and Miquelon Island. And thus be able to take a little shelter. That's when the fog suddenly evaporated. And a completely different landscape appeared to us.
The wind had dropped, the boat had stopped, everything seemed to be frozen, as if out of time. An intense and incredible contrast. We were gliding between these two islands whose wild shoreline made me think of the Breton coast, where it is virgin of any human intervention. A little less green, no doubt, because these islands are very windy. For me, as a nature lover, it looked a bit like paradise on earth! The sky was blue and the sea an intense green... It, with almost emerald green reflections, so much plankton in this region. This explains another appearance... As we were discovering this sublime landscape, we also saw a whale and its calf next to us! At that moment, I really felt in the heart of nature. Nothing reminded me more of civilization. It was a very intense moment, so stealthy. I wish I could have extended it much further... Even though I am a competitor at heart, at that moment, I admit it, I reacted like a simple sailor, and I took the time to contemplate. It's also for moments like that that you cover miles and miles at sea, isn't it?
The touch
Moisture is the most striking thing on board for me about this direction. When you go out to sea for several days, at first you go from being a landowner to being a sailor. Your relationship with the water changes. Everything becomes wet: the helm, the sails, the deck, the hands, the hair... and the rest permanently. But you get used to it, little by little, until it becomes part of your life on board and is no longer even negative in your eyes.
I say to myself that the theory that the human species went through an amphibian state during its evolution is not without meaning! Maybe that's what, unconsciously, allows us to endure and then assimilate this extreme humidity as a normal environment?! Besides, when I come back to land, I feel a certain nostalgia for it. Certainly because, now on the cows' floor, I'm no longer in tune with the marine element I left, and the land element I haven't quite found yet?
Hearing
Our brain is incredible: to succeed, in a very noisy environment, to isolate very quickly the slightest abnormal noise, it's fascinating, I find. And that's exactly what we do in sailing races! In short, what I'm telling you goes back to 2016, during the Vendée Globe. At that time I was between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, to the south of Tasmania. I'm tackling the Southern Ocean. The winds and seas are hostile. My environment is as noisy as can be! But in the 41 days I've been at sea, I've got used to it. It's become a background noise for me. I usually sleep well on board, but that day I had some very unusual headaches. I feel like I'm not doing well. And all of a sudden I hear a huge rupture, close to an explosion, a detonation... A discordant sound, which contrasts with the hubbub I know. An aggressive and violent noise, which makes me guess that it's serious and important. But, at this moment, I can't imagine exactly what happened. I'll soon find out: my mast, flat... My boat has stopped and the noise it was making has diminished, in a rather strange way. It reminded me of a musician playing at the top of his voice, cut off by a powerful drumbeat, whose vibration continues for a moment after the orchestra has actually stopped. And who wonders if what just happened..
Taste
Spontaneously, I'd say that when I go out to sea for a long time, it's everything that's fresh, and therefore rare, that appeals to me the most! I remember an orange tasted in particularly pleasant conditions. It was still in the Deep South. I'd been away for over a month and was eating tasteless and rather unhygienic food. It had rained for seven days. As the last drops were falling, a beautiful rainbow was already rounding the sky. A kind of euphoria took hold of me. And I told myself that this long awaited moment was worth celebrating. By tasting something delicious, for example! I remember myself in the lookout post: an orange in my hand, which I cut and bring to my mouth... And there, at once, I think I'm entering the most talented starred chef! What a pleasure this juicy, almost melting orange, with a pronounced flavour, sweet, somewhat sour too. A real delight, all the more so as, at sea, a citrus fruit is a bit the opposite of what we usually eat since we eat rather dry and crunchy food. And what is stamped "long shelf life" is often tasteless. So, I tend to load these dishes with spices, pepper... and often in vain too!
The sense of smell
When you set out to sea, you swap the sometimes nauseating odours of the land for those of the sea, which are extremely iodised! And when we go the opposite way, sometimes we regret it. I speak from experience. This one in particular: during a double-handed race, after four or five days spent offshore, we set course for New York. I don't feel well, to the point of even wanting to vomit. It's a bad smell that disgusts me, without me being able to identify it or locate it. It's not coming from the boat... it lingers until we reach the harbor. To the people who came to welcome me and whom I know well, I ask what the problem is with the sewers, the pipes, which explains why it stinks so much! They don't know what I'm talking about. It's only after a few hours, when I had got used to this effluvium, that I understood that it was unfortunately this awful smell that humanity has when it is concentrated on a small surface. It upset me. Then I thought of that famous novel called "Le parfum" (The Perfume), which describes so well how the nose perceives in certain streets of Paris?
What about fear?
Without getting smart, I'll tell you that I've rarely been afraid at sea. When you're in extreme danger, you're more in the action. You put other mechanisms in place. The adrenaline rush in particular. I experienced it in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Again, yes, no doubt because this area is very rich naturally and has a relatively small population, so it intensely stimulates our senses. I was with my crew close to the shores of the mouth. I was asleep when my crewman came to wake me up. He heard an intriguing noise. And we don't like that kind of noise on a boat.
I go upstairs and hear it: horrible screams worthy of a horror movie, which, by the way, make our blood run cold. We can't figure out what it is. Not Loch Ness, that's for sure, but a monstrous animal perhaps? We think it's an old wolf... But in the open sea?! There's no way of knowing. And that adds to the fear that comes to us little by little. And it's getting closer. There's no escape. Panic on board is growing. All I want to do is to get up on my feet and take refuge in the depths of a cave. Ancestral reflexes come to the surface in these moments! But we are in the 21st century: armed with a projector, we hurriedly explore our surroundings. And we stumble on an island. The St. Lawrence River is moving its sandbanks without warning. First surprise. The second is even bigger: sea wolves lying there! Here is our monster unmasked, and we, gone in memorable bursts of laughter! Today, I think of Jacques Cartier's crews who arrived there without knowing anything about the place, without any tools to apprehend them... Perhaps they, too, heard these rales? Perhaps they were petrified with fear? What courage they showed!
