Everyone is back
This is it, the 10 e edition of the Vendée Globe is over. In accordance with the race instructions, known to all competitors, the line was crossed at 8am on Friday March 7. Despite the outpouring of sympathy generated by the general public for the Belgian yachtsman, the organization did not accede to requests for a derogation to allow Denis to finish ranked. Denis himself had not requested this, aware that the most important thing was to come full circle and avoid sterile controversy.
And so ends a fine edition which demonstrated the excellent reliability of the fleet as a whole, and confirmed, if confirmation were needed, that the future lies with foils.
The end of a world
Now, focus on 2028. A number of winning projects are already in training for the next edition, which will be selected by points rather than by the number of miles covered by competitors. The process to obtain the precious sesame therefore requires a lot of running, without finishing at the bottom of the ranking.
It's unlikely, therefore, that a profile like Denis's, running on a small budget and with an amateur staff, will ever appear on the line again in future editions.
Amateur racers have played a big part in creating the magic of the Vendée Globe, with the public feeling closer to these sailors on a human level. Denis thus closes the last chapter of a beautiful story. Let's hope that the sailors selected in 2028 will manage to write new pages just as exciting as those lived since 1989.
