Alan Roura is an engaging young Swiss sailor. When his path crossed that of 2 journalists and photographers from the same country, it was love at first sight. It has to be said that the young sailor who was about to cross the Atlantic in the Mini Transat was out of the ordinary. The 22-year-old had grown up on his family's sailboat, traveling the world without ever attending school.
What followed was a life devoted solely to the sea and sailing boats. From his Otimist on Lake Geneva to his first Mini 650 in the West Indies, the kid loves only one thing: sailing. This lavishly illustrated book describes the bohemian life of this iconoclast of the sea.
It's clear that the authors, Jean-Guy Python and Grégoire Surdez, both Swiss, aren't exactly objective when it comes to portraying the sailor. It's true that he remains surprising, and his whirlwind career in Mini, then Class40 and finally IMOCA has the merit of raising questions.
If the "kid" has managed to raise sponsors and steer his boat across all the world's oceans, his third participation in the Vendée Globe 2024 at the helm of Hublot, the Lancien Hugo Boss developed by Alex Thomson, may arouse jealousy. All the more so as Alan Roura has never succeeded, during his preparations and the various qualifying transatlantic races, in demonstrating that he has mastered the machine's potential. These sailing experiences are only half-told in the book that is being written before the start of the Vendée Globe in November 2024. Unfortunately, the Swiss sailor's 18th-place finish does not show that the skipper has the potential to take this type of craft to the front.
This portrait of the young skipper offers the advantage of showing his career path and presenting him from his best angle, with numerous photos that make you want to sail with this magnificent young man with an incredibly locked smile on his face.
Alan Roura - Offshore school
- By Jean-Guy Python and Grégoire Surdez
- Edition Favre
- 22.5 x 23.9 cm
- 176 pages
- Publication date: September 12, 2024
- 27,00 ?
