The view
I remember a surprise... It was during the 2016 Vendée Globe. I was off the Kerguelen Islands in the Roaring Forties. The conditions were good at the time: I could enjoy a few hours of respite between two lows... As I had to send a video to the race organisers, I got out of the cockpit with my camera. And just as I was starting to film saying "hello", I saw a whale appear on the port side. It's incredible to see it by chance, just like that, in the middle of the ocean, at that very moment... It was so close, 50 or 80 metres away! It was the first time I'd ever seen one. It's a huge animal all the same. And I confess that I was quite moved by it. Probably also because being able to observe this endangered and therefore protected mammal seemed to me to be a privilege. I was bluffed, but I was also quite stressed, because a collision with it, at that speed, can do a lot of damage. You can break everything. This mix of emotions, it's very surprising. And then, it had been about forty days since I'd left land, and I hadn't seen many animals: flying fish, yes, albatrosses too and a few dolphins... but a whale?! It was unique for me, because I have never seen one since. Needless to say, my video was all done after that episode!
The touch
It's a memory that's both quite distant in time, and very present in my memory... An intense pain, and also one of the biggest laughs I've ever had at sea!
In 2011, I was racing the Transat Jacques Vabre with my brother. We chose the northern route to reach Le Havre to Puerto Limon in Costa Rica. We crossed the Caribbean arc. First race on an IMOCA, first time we sailed together: we were really happy. Even if, it's true, with the spinnaker we'd put on, and the boat tending to bury us, we'd been taking on a lot of sea and seafood for several hours already! We were each looking over the cap in turn to see ahead. It's my turn: I stand up and look... and all of a sudden, with yet another bucket of water, a fish! A fish that hits me in the face. So suddenly, and so big too, this fish - at least 20 centimetres! - that it knocks me out. It falls, inanimate too, into the cockpit. I join him there, supported by my brother. And then, and then... When I came to my senses, I saw him, my brother, above me. I felt him worried, I remember that. And then, quickly, in front of a man and a fish passed out, he started to smile and finally couldn't suppress a crazy laugh. Contagious of course: then, as soon as I understood that nothing serious had happened to me ! As for the fish, it went, dead or alive, we'll never know, to join its fellow creatures ! This episode comes back to my mind also because it reminds me of those moments, when I was little, when I was doing stupid things with my brother, that one of us had a boo-boo, but that we ended up laughing about it even more together !
Hearing
It's always during the last Vendée Globe. Towards the end, after almost 90 days at sea, I felt, it's true, a huge lack... During these ocean races, thanks to the satellite phone, and even if it's very expensive, you have the possibility of calling land. But we remain frustrated because the connection is not normal: the voices are distorted and there is a transmission delay which prevents the conversation from being fluid. I even found it painful when it was my wife and children I was talking to. So when I arrived in the channel of Les Sables-d'Olonne, and I heard their voices again, their real voices... what an emotion! I saw them approaching on a semi-rigid, and I perceived a cry from my wife, a tender cry. And then they got on board, and there, two little voices, intimidated to find me after so long, and also impressed by the crowd around us, whispered to me: "We missed you daddy". Moved to tears, I let go. I had arrived, it was over, I had made it, I was safe. To this day, I still remember those words... and it helps me to put up with them when they're too loud!
Taste
On the ground, I'm pretty good at it. But at sea, on a daily basis, I don't eat for pleasure. I have this memory that comes back to my mind and it goes back to the Vendée Globe... again! It's quite a race, you know! One of my friends and family had put a few surprises in my belongings... To be opened for Christmas. That evening, I remember sitting at my chart table with a small block of foie gras, fig jam and a quarter of a red Bordeaux wine in front of me. I tasted it all as if it were the best I had ever eaten and drunk! And as I was focused on what was in my mouth, not talking to anyone else at the same time, it was all the more intense as a sensation. They had a flavour that was beyond anything I had ever felt before. At least, that's the impression I had at that moment. In reality, these foods weren't so succulent, just normal. They just tasted like the open sea! On land, it's clear, I wouldn't have made such a big deal out of it. I took some time for this meal, which gave me a lot of pleasure and comfort. It reminds me of that song by Georges Brassens, l'Auvergnat, and that phrase "It was nothing but a bit of bread, but it had warmed my body, And in my soul it burned encor' A la manièr' d'un grand festin".
The sense of smell
Without hesitation, the moment that marked me most in this sense occurred in 2017. I was lucky enough to be able to race the Transat Jacques Vabre with Servane Escoffier. We had very bad weather for the first three days. At one point, when I went downstairs to do a weather report and got closer to the chart table, I could smell it. She was lying there and she smelled good, just good. And for me it was just very pleasant! Before I had only sailed with men. And after a few days of sailing, the smell in the cabin isn't always... In short, a feminine perfume, hers too, it delighted me. It also reminded me of our nights at home, together.
What about fear?
I'm racing in the 2016-2017 Vendée Globe. I'm getting closer to the South Pole: the days are getting shorter one after the other, the winds from the first lows are forecast; the swell is getting stronger and more pronounced... I feel, I know, that I'm entering the maritime zone, which I've been hearing about since I was a kid, that it's the most difficult place to sail. I reach the Roaring Forties... It's getting dark. All of a sudden the autopilot pushes the helm so hard and so fast that the boat changes direction violently. With the wind already strong, the boat lies down at 90°... and I'm hanging vertically in the cockpit! I'm holding on as best I can. Panic on the horizon... I manage to remove the automatic pilot and let go of the sails. Phew! I put the boat back on course, trim the sails, reset the autopilot. And go back into the cabin to get something to eat... No sooner had I got there than the autopilot shifted again! Once again, I put things back in order... but the fear is getting to me, really. In these sailing conditions and with what awaits me further on, to go off so violently is a real risk of irreparable breakage! My anxiety is growing, despair is growing: twice again, this ride will be repeated without me understanding the malfunctioning of the automatic pilot any more. However, I have to find a solution... otherwise I'll have to give up! Reduce the sails, go slower, and land to search. It was then that I remembered a book written by a sailor about this kind of malfunction. I remember that it was a problem linked to the polarity of the compass that guides the pilot. And this compass, which is magnetic, when approaching the South Pole, can be subject to interference... By changing this instrument, by replacing this one with an electronic one, I had found the answer. What a relief, I remember, that the danger for me and my boat had gone away. And what a relief to be able to tell me that it wasn't over, that the race was continuing!
