I'm Alan Roura, skipper of La Fabrique, a 60-foot Vendée Globe boat. Sailing the North Atlantic record single-handed, fairly extreme sea conditions with a wind of around 30 knots on the beam. To feel the boat rise up on her foils, the appendages that
allow you to fly a boat. There was one day when the boat went over 35 knots under autopilot. It was a white sea with such a strong wind. That's the moment that will remain engraved where for nothing in the world, I wouldn't have exchanged this day which was not far from being the day when the boat was going to have the record for the 24 hours single-handed. It's really a moment that will remain etched in my memory and even for millions of euros, I'll stay on my boat. It was really magical. It's the kind of moment where you feel a... You know when you're in an elevator and it stops. You know when you're in an elevator and it stops... You quickly get a ball in your stomach going up and down like a merry-go-round, for example, and you find yourself with your heart going up and down... And finally, on a boat, you can get that feeling, especially in boats that go very fast, like the boats in the Vendée Globe. Especially when they start to
fly. It's very interesting to be on a machine that's run by one man, but it makes us feel like we're on a merry-go-round. Not a carousel that goes up very high. The boat's going to be six feet above the water. It's going to feel like we're flying on something that's not meant to be. And then there's a sense of freedom. There's no speed limit, there's no sea limit. Everything becomes simple. And the noise fades as the boat takes off. It's really a feeling of freedom that I've never felt anywhere else.
