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Monday 19 October 2015
Nàndor Fa back in the Vendée Globe
Twenty years after last competing, the Hungarian skipper is once again pre-registered for the next Vendée Globe. From Les Sables-d’Olonne, his new home port, Nàndor Fa has cast off to sail his Spirit of Hungary to Le Havre, where he will line up at the start of the Transat Jacques Vabre. The 62 year-old sportsman agreed to meet up with us before the start to talk about why he is so attached to the Vendée Globe.
Spirit Of Hungary Nandor Fa
© Gilles Martin-Raget
No-one could have foreseen a career at sea in Nàndor Fa’s childhood. He was born in the Hungarian city of Székesfehérvár in 1953. With his brothers, Nàndor wrestled, but a serious injury brought this land-based sport to an end. He then took up kayaking for ten years. “I only began to sail a the age of 27, but two years later I became a member of the national Finn team for the Olympics. Unfortunately because of the boycott of the Los Angelès games, I wasn’t able to compete. Frustrated, I decided to head further out to sea and built a 31-foot boat that I called Szent Jupat after the district of Budapest where I lived, with the aim of cruising around the world with my compatriot József Gál. We were the first Hungarians to make it all the way around! The great adventure lasted two years and it is what happened at Cape Horn that changed my life…”
The BOC Challenge on the Chilean radio
Spirit of Hungary, le nouveau monocoque IMOCA de Nandor Fa
© Nandor FA
In the winter of 1987 in the Pacific, as they approached Cape Horn aboard Szent Jupat, Nàndor heard the Chilena radio talking about what was going on in the BOC Challenge. The solo race with stopovers was led by a certain Philippe Jeantôt, who was sailing in that area and was already thinking about organising the Everest of the Seas without stopovers. It was a revelation for Nandor: “It was at that moment that I decided to dedicate my life to solo racing around the world and I immediately grabbed my drawing board to come up with a 60-foot racer. Once back in Hungary, I started work on Alba Régia, which was launched two years later, in time for the start in Newport of the 1990 BOC Challenge.” Convinced that he had made the right choice when he finished in tenth place in the 90-91 BOC in spite of many technical problems, the skipper then aimed for the second edition of the Vendée Globe, which was due to take place the following year.
The first foreigner to complete the Vendée Globe
In November 1992, Alba Régia lined up at the start of the Vendée Globe in the colours of K&H Banque Matav. Finishing the race in fifth place, 128 days later, Nàndor Fa became the first non-French skipper to cross the finishing line of the Vendée Globe. Looking forward to the next Vendée Globe and built with his own hands, a new racer, Budapest came out of the yard in March 1996, seven months before the start of the race. Unfortunately during this third Vendée Globe, the monohull suffered a lot of damage, before colliding with a Panamanian tanker, forcing Nàndor Fa out of the race. “With Christophe Auguin, the winner of the race that year, we were among the first members of the IMOCA,” he remembers. “I was even chair of the association for five years.”
A fifteen year pause
He went on to finish fourth in the 1997 Transat Jacques Vabre (sailing with Albert Bargues), but Nándor then decided to bring his offshore racing career to an end with Budapest sol to Raphaël Dinelli, who renamed her Océan Vital. The Hungarian skipper took up racing on Lake Balaton and set up a company Fa Ltd making mooring gear for pontoons in his home town of Székesfehérváre. Nàndor proudly showed us the moorings on the race pontoon in Port Olona , which are holding Spirit of Hungary in place. “Look here! I produced these and those in Port-LaForêt also come from my company!”
Spirit of Hungary
Nandor Fa, skipper de Spirit of Hungary
© Gilles Martin-Raget
In 2010, the ocean racing bug returned and Nàndor drew up the plans for a new Imoca monohull. After three years of work with a team of five, Spirit of Hungary was launched in Trieste in Italy, but the sailor was not happy, as he wasn’t ready in time to compete in the New York-Barcelona race in 2013. Spirit of Hungary finally made it around the world last spring finishing in 7th place in the Barcelona World Race, with Conrad Colman (NZ). So what next? “The boat will remain based in Les Sables d’Olonne until the Vendée Globe. I’ll be competing in the Transat Jacques Vabre with Peter Perènyi, a young member of my team making his debut on an Imoca. After that, I shall take part in the B.to B. and the new race between New York and Les Sables. The 2016 Vendée Globe will be my final ocean race.”
“The Vendée Globe is my life”
“I’m very pleased to see the fantastic line-up of star names and boats planned for the next Vendée Globe. I shall be setting off with the aim of racing as best I can, analysing the weather, tactics and the technical aspects, while enjoying myself sailing and pushing the boat hard to her maximum speed, but I don’t have any particular goal in terms of the result. As for the foils, they mark a new path, which looks promising and exciting for the future. Even if it is too early to talk about how much of an advantage they will be during a round the world race, they are clearly the future. On the videos I have watched, such as Gitana’s for example, the boat slams and is very wet, so it’s certainly not for me! In my family, I have two children and a grandson, and the Vendée Globe is the love of my life, but after this round the world voyage, I shall be 64, so I think it will be time for me to give up ocean racing.”
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