08.02.2013
Dominique Wavre, the highlights of his press conference
Articles | Friday 08 February 2013, 19:43
He looked fresh. He spoke animatedly and passionately and explained why he loves his life at sea which has now spanned 30 years....
Comments 10
MIRABAUD 080213 2578 © Olivier Blanchet / DPPI
" There is such an amazing warmth here it is so welcoming when you arrive."
About sharing the race and the passion.
I love telling people about the race. Basically we have such a wonderful life racing down there. The boats are just amazing and the racing we do is fabulous and I need to transmit that passion. I hate to think that future generations will have no passion. You can really commit yourself to something here, to the limit. You can live something with passion and enthusiasm. If you can transmit about doing things with passion out world would be a better place.
Might not go round again
I might do some silly things but I don’t know that I would go round again. I have done quite a few different ones and they have all been different and difficult. I can remember each one and their difficulties. Each one has provided me with different emotions, like with crewed races or the weather that has been important, or the emotions. I have had some amazing races with Michele on the Barcelona World Race. It is a way of life, not just a race. It is a life at sea that I have had for 30 years.
Feeling good after 90 days at sea at the age of 57
I just had a glass of wine and a steak and chips and I feel great. I must say that it is not an easy job for the body. You have to be strong, fit and motivated before you start. If you are not fit before you start it is a nightmare. You need to know how to push yourself to the limit and then hold just a little bit back. At the most stressful moments you need to have a little bit held back for the really stressful moments so you are clear headed. And it is with those little moments of stress that you can then handle them with clarity, situations on the boat, or manoeuvres, and you also need to know how to recover, to know that you are at the limit and need to sleep. It is better to know you need to sleep for ten minutes than try to do a manoeuvre.
Fast start how do you live with that?
Four years ago there was a chance of catching up with them. I had half a delay at the start and still managed to catch up. And look at what Michel (Desjoyeaux) did the last time and he caught up more and won. What happened this time is that those at the very front lead at the start and were the fastest. Theirs was the combination of fast boats and talented sailors and great conditions and that just meant they got off and away. They were really fast. You look at the weather forecast for ten days and just know they are going to get even further away. My friends, the Tonton Flingeurs, Mike and Jean, I don’t know where that expression came from but we had a great race.
Close Encounter of the Le Cam kind
Suddenly I saw Jean on the horizon and he was coming up closer and closer, and I kept looking under my small gennaker and then he caught me up. And suddenly he came closer and closer. I called him on the VHF and suddenly I saw him on the deck filming me. I was filming him too 300 metres away. And we spoke on the VHF. I am under gennaker and he said yes I am under gennaker too, and he said now I got to go and speak to the English guy. Nice to see Mike here with me.
Ranking
It was a mad race but also logical. We are all using the same weather models and charts and so it is normal in a way that our paths are going to be close and cross. It is a bit absurd to meet in the southern ocean and for the leaders to keep changing places.
Gennaker problem
The biggest problem I had on the race was with my gennaker on the 1st of January. I had 25kts of wind and 350 sq metres of gennaker. It came off the bowsprit and it was just like flying a kite. And of course it was dark, raining with a bad seas. If you were crewed then you would try to recover it, but on your own you battle to recover it. It was like Mike Tyson versus the gennaker. I had to tie it down in 25kts of wind. It was a massive fight to get it back on board out of the water. I phoned Mich and told her I had a little problem. And for about three weeks I couldn’t get into part of the boat because I had this massive gennaker. It took be about three hours to get back up and roll it up to save it. I lost a lot ground before Cape Horn with that problem. As soon as I got it back up I was able to make good speed again.
The passage up the Atlantic.
It was a nightmare. The Pacific is normally quite nice sailing and then it is a delivery up the Atlantic but it was just awful. Both the Southern and Northern Atlantic passages were just a nightmare. I don’t know if I am looking at it the wrong way or our weather files were just not good. But it was just a nightmare. The different anticyclones were just moving and it was not rational.
What I have thought about this race.
Normally about three days before the finish of a race you have some time to think about it, but this time I have not looked back yet. Last night was a nightmare. I have learned that the team work on the preparation of the boat with Michele has been exceptional. I think everything works on the boat, everything is intact on the boat. That is about the work we did before the race which has really paid off. The experience at sea that I have had is that you don’t have the same level of stress. On the vacations I was never really stressed. I just don’t get stressed. I had answers to most of the situations that I had to face. That helps you reduce your stress levels. And so you eat well, you sleep well, you do good manoeuvres and have good strategy. If you are too stressed or get annoyed about small things then you take the wrong decisions and it becomes a chain reaction. The winner is euphoric because they win and there is me who has done what I was hoping to do on this race.
Sharing the love
I do the Vendée Globe to share it. We are here to communicate. I am thanking my sponsors, my team, and so to spend some time doing the videos, to thinking about the answers to some of the questions. It is a privilege to be out there and to be able to share it.
Nothing is scripted?
When you start the Vendée Globe you can be first, you can be last or you can abandon. Nothing is pre-determined. As we have seen we have had abandons through bad luck or bad preparation. Nothing about the results are scripted before the start. It was difficult to say who would win, Riou or Dick? Logically they are both good boats with skippers with a lot of experience. One broke and one lost its keel, and you can legislate for either happening. I don’t believe in starting and thinking I will be eighth or seventh or whatever, anything can happen. There is a sporting question and the answer is that the best boats with the best skippers and the best sponsors should finish ahead.
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