Born in Périgueux, it is in Guadeloupe that he grew up, where his parents, riding teachers, settled. It was during holidays in Brittany, at the age of 9, that he really discovered sailing. Today, at the age of 42, he has become an experienced skipper. Proof of this is his second place in the last Transat Jacques Vabre in 2019, in the Multi 50 category.
The view
It's the fifth day of the last Route du Rhum... and I'm finally coming out of a series of violent depressions! Ahead of me, more clement weather. It looks like a sunny day ahead. A few clouds, yes. Four to five metres of a swell, round and fairly pleasant, lifted by a wind blowing at 20 or 25 knots, certainly. So a bit of rock'n'roll sailing, all the same... But it's a real respite for me, compared to what I went through just before! I'm back at the helm again, to rediscover the pleasure of sailing. And also the pleasure of racing: I want to show the other skippers that I'm first, that everything went well and is going well for me, and that I intend to stay ahead! The boat surfs hard on some waves. It looks very lively to me. It changes trim depending on the wave that lifts it up then. That's constantly changing the atmosphere, by the way. The daggerboard, for example, which always whistles loudly, seems to change notes, a bit like on a guitar when you pluck different strings. The noise varies in intensity according to the speed. Sometimes, on my face a little water, and other times, on me as a whole, a few buckets! As I'm near the Azores, what I get from the sea is warmer and also saltier. It burns a bit at my fingertips because of the crystallisation, but... But, this moment of sailing remains a real pleasure for me. After what I've been through, taking care of the man and his boat just feels so good! I could do with some sleep, because during the last depression I didn't really sleep a wink. I haven't eaten any more, by the way... But even if the conditions are better, they are not yet stable. I need to remain vigilant... All the more so as on the horizon, I think I can see a squall moving towards me. And also a freighter following a converging course. It's at the moment when I'm really close to it that the squall falls on me. I can no longer see 100 metres ahead of me. The wind changes and I have to change course. But nothing in front of the bows anymore. No more cargo... I let go of the helm to go and look at the screens to see if it was still visible to the AIS. When you're tired - and I certainly was! - you quickly lose your bearings. And there comes a moment of stress, which is also healthy, because you pull yourself together. The lesson from this vision of a cargo ship that seems to have disappeared is that even during a moment of relative relaxation, vigilance is always required... Also, sleeping and eating can always help!
The touch
Let's resume the same race, but a few days after the passage of the lows. The sea is calmer and above all the boat is moving in its direction. Nothing to do with the breaking waves of the previous days. Nor with the blows I was giving myself, in the cabin, so much I was struggling in all directions! Nothing to do either with the damp cold that pierces through even with a hat that falls to the level of my eyebrows and a nose mask that goes up to my dark circles! Everything is now more fluid, soothing, serene... I make the cormorant: I lie down and open my arms, like him, his wings, to dry them. The sun gently warms my skin. Delicious. Light therapy, no doubt! I then decide to go change, to leave the clothes that have been wet for a few days already. The goal is to put back some dry ones, without them touching any wet part of the cabin... to keep as long as possible this soft feeling of being "dry". It's not that easy, as a boat is never stationary... So, after putting talcum powder on my buttocks - to limit the pimples, an ordeal for the skippers... - I'm a dancer or a tightrope walker, as you like: don't fall down so as not to get my underpants wet. And I succeed. What an assured well-being! Then, the boots: I put them on the deck to dry. And meanwhile, toes fanning out... the foot precisely! At that moment, I'm the king of oil!
Hearing
My sailboat is very sonorous and it resonates a lot inside. It's not always very comfortable, to tell you the truth. However, for me, noise is a source of information about whether my boat is working well or badly. So I have to pay a lot of attention to them. But one day, during the Route du Rhum, when I was really exhausted, my ears played quite a trick on me! I heard a sizzling thud, which sounded like a radio broadcast with a muffled sound, muffled as if it was hidden under a cushion or forgotten in a bag. For a quarter of an hour I searched the boat for a transistor, a VHF, a badly hung up phone... In short, an object that could emit words! I was almost playing "you're getting warmer, you're getting colder" to manage to find it. But nowhere in my boat did it get hot enough! I had to face up to the fact that what I was looking for didn't exist... I fell victim to what is called acoustic hallucination: I had unconsciously converted sounds into words! I found it very disturbing, I must admit. I've never experienced that before... There's another sound that comes to mind: the sound of the satellite phone we have on board. It's not so much the ringing that's striking, but the behaviour it provokes in me when I hear it! Like all skippers, I have precise and obligatory appointments with the organisation during the races. But there can be delays in the schedule if competitors, for example, don't respond - and that's also pleasant because it puts me back ashore! I'm not standing by the phone... I'm still sailing! The ringing is neither very strident nor very loud, whilst the boat is still noisy. Besides, it's inside for protection. Anyway, it's not easy to hear it. So, when I hear the bell... Ashore, I tell myself that there will always be my voice mail to replace me. But at sea... Well, I'm running on my boat!
Taste
Before leaving, on land, I eat as normally as possible, in a balanced way, without excess, without alcohol, without small guilt-ridden pleasures... The taste atmosphere, at that time, is rather "athletic"! The day of departure is a bit complicated. It starts with a frugal breakfast. And it continues with a lunch ... A lunch that in fact I always wonder when to take: the start of the race, often around 13h, is not very practical for that! It is also true that my stomach is not necessarily ready to digest when the excitement and stress are very present. For the first few hours, even the first few days, I'm in contact with the other competitors. I don't eat well. That's not when I plan to cook: so it's freeze-dried dishes that I swallow without pleasure and only partly; and then cereal bars or other energising appetite suppressants that make me pour into snacking! And as long as the sailing conditions are tough, I have even less time to eat. During the last Route du Rhum, it was even more radical since I got seasick! I don't know why; I'm not normally subject to it. I've got into a rather complicated sequence of events: a messy stomach, vomiting, a diminishing desire to eat, a need to do so in order to stay in shape... As soon as the weather calms down and I'm a bit more comfortable, I unpack my little pleasures: cheeses, pieces of vacuum-dried meat, in particular delicious, slightly smoked country ham. Before leaving, I buy my supplies from some very good producers next door. What I really like is to prepare myself, when the evening comes, a small aperitif: spreading hummus or homemade rillettes on cereal cracottes, it makes me feel like I'm in the kitchen! It's a very simple gourmet pleasure, but so tasty... The little "poc" when I open the pot of rillettes, what I then see appearing, the texture of what I spread with my little knife, then the crunchiness followed by the slack when I taste, the real chewing afterwards... All that delights me. Especially when I exaggerated with the sweet before, because nibbling is above all sugar, and I'm more than tired of it!
The sense of smell
I have good olfactory memories of shores, like the one in Corsica with its scents of scrubland. But I also have less pleasant ones: the smell left behind by a cargo ship, long after it has passed, makes you think, I assure you. All the more so as when you're out at sea, the contrast between the little smell of the sea and the overflow of these ships is so strong. After a race, when I come back the day after the finish to clean up, the scents coming out of my boat are intense to say the least... And not exactly in the right direction! The boat isn't ventilated as it is at sea, and sometimes it's hot on land... In short, if at sea you don't really notice these smells, once you get there, it's quite different!
What about fear?
Never, until today, have I felt any vital fears. But enough to arouse strong emotions, yes, of course I have. For example, in 2016, during The Transat, which leads from Plymouth, UK, to New York, single-handed on my Class40. I was at the second or third low. The wind was blowing at 50 knots, gusting to 57. It was night time. I was downwind, a little overcast. And the boat started to accelerate. There was no time to reduce sail... the boat was leaking forward. It was going over 27 knots. So I put on the autopilot and went down the companionway for cover. Of course, the boat could go at any time in a heap. But what could I do? Waiting, from my point of view, just waiting for it to pass... I would have taken more risk, I think, in trying any manoeuvre. Saying to myself as well that it's going to be "all right". I was out of control anyway, I was undergoing. It was stressful of course, but surprisingly also quite exciting. I accepted, while remaining very attentive. I did the round back.
During the same race, when I entered the Gulf Stream, I felt an intense fear as well, but more sudden. The sea was particularly choppy. It was night and I was in the cabin. At one point, two slightly strong waves crossed and formed a mountain of water in front of the boat... And of course, behind it, there was a precipice. The boat fell two or three metres without even touching the water. I flew into the cabin, and at the same time I heard a huge crack when I landed. Immediately I thought of dismasting, at the end of the race, but also of the cauldron we were in, which wasn't an ideal place to find ourselves in a tricky situation... I was already making a film! Throughout the night, I saw that the mast was still there, but that it might not stay there for long, as the structure of the boat, including the one supporting the mast, was fractured. Finally, after contacting the boat's architect, I made him a splint!
This time it was during the last Route du Rhum. I had to stop in the Azores for damage. It's been repaired and I'm on my way back. But the problem happens again: it's impossible to reduce the mainsail, which is stuck at the top of the mast. I can no longer secure my boat as the trade winds are coming in... I have no other choice but to go and see what's going on up there. And 'up there' is at the end of the mast, 22 metres above the deck. In the harbour, I've been practising, of course... But only for a few metres and without the boat moving a centimetre or so! I'm trying to find my way around to calm myself down. I equip myself and begin my ascent. But a mast is smooth, very smooth. And then, as I've never done any climbing, I wonder if all this gear can really hold me back... So I hang on as best I can, probably more than necessary. I can feel my toes in my boots tensing up. I discover deep muscles in my body that I never even imagined existed. So, in addition to stress, there is intense physical exertion. Forty minutes before I finally reach the top. Half an hour more "on the spot" to be briskly stroked non-stop, because when you're perched on a rod more than 20 metres away, the slightest movement at the bottom takes on a whole new dimension at the top! When I come back down, I have to repair and re-launch the sail several times, making sure that the systems are working. Four hours of enormous effort between going up, repairing, coming back down to the deck of the boat, lowering and hoisting the mainsail again while taking a reef... I'm physically cooked.
During the last Transat Jacques Vabre in 2019, I had a strange feeling... rather frightening. After my watch, I went downstairs to lie down in the cabin. As I undress, I suddenly feel the boat speeding up... And I hear my team mate shouting at me to come. The boat is crashing. And I find myself being thrown violently against a bulkhead. At the same moment, a bottle of water does the same, without my seeing it, crushed by a bag that has flown. It then makes a terrible cracking sound that makes me think I've broken bones. Painful thought of course. Which adds to the real shock I have just suffered: I can't breathe or speak at the moment. And my teammate calling me... without getting an answer! Finally, I found my breath and voice again!
