Vendée Globe

In the 2000-2001 Vendée Globe, in the battle at the front of the fleet alongside Michel Desjoyeaux and Roland Jourdain, Yves Parlier, who had been left behind, stepped up the pace in the Southern Ocean to get back up with them. Sailing faster and faster, the blue boat was covering the miles at an incredible pace. On 17th December, Yves reckoned he was three weeks from Cape Horn, as he caught to just 127 miles from Desjoyeaux and even closer to Jourdain. The skipper of Aquitaine Innovations was simply delighted. However, the Vendée Globe was once again to get way from him, as his monohull was to be dismasted, while sailing at full speed. The intrepid sailor was not going to let that stop him. Far from it. Showing determination, intelligence, skill and patience, he carried out a remarkable feat. He was to construct a mast by himself and complete the solo round the world race. In his book published in French by Laffont in 2001, «Yves Parlier, Robinson des Mers», the solo sailor looked back at the details of this incredible adventure.
 

17th December 2000: All was well for Yves Parlier, until the autopilot motor on Aquitaine Innovation seemed to be showing signs of fatigue. Yves switched immediately to the other pilot and went below into the stern compartment in the carbon innards. Wearing his head lamp, he examined the black actuator and tried to repair it. Being steered by the second pilot, the boat yawed. All of a sudden the boat bore away, and the boom swung over the deck and slammed into the runners. Yves got himself out of the confined space, went out into the cockpit and managed to get the boat going again, until she bore away in the opposite direction. The sailor lost his balance and was unable to grab the sheet and the blue hull accelerated away and slammed into a wave. «Bang, a horrible noise rang out in the night. A sound that was sudden and yet grindingly familiar, it could be nothing else: the sound of exploding carbon.» Yves did not have time to get to his feet before the mast fell in three pieces. Clearly the Vendée did not want Parlier to succeed. The first time, he lost his mast the day after the start, then it was his rudder in the Indian Ocean and now, another dismasting… which happened far from the nearest land.

Continue
«I could not imagine anything other than continuing. It just seemed simple to me," explained Parlier. "The Vendée represents nine years of my life. The Vendée is a mountain that I just had to climb to reach the top. I had started to prepare for that race, as soon as the previous one was over. I stuck with it in spite of a paragliding accident. I was determined to see it through, as it was my destiny…».
After an amazing effort, the sailor from Aquitaine managed to recover the broken parts of his spar and sails. Rapidly, he set up a jury rig with his storm jib on the stump of his mast before considering other possibilities. In the end, he decided he would continue all the way to Les Sables. Initially, Yves thought about erecting a second mast, cutting his sails to adapt them to the new configuration, making a gaff or sprit sail to increase the sail area. He thought he could make it to the Horn like that at a reasonable speed, but in the back of his mind, he was working on another solution , which would be more efficient: It involved making a real mast by sticking the top and bottom parts back together and using the middle section as a means of strengthening the whole thing. An 18 metre high mast would allow him to hoist the mainsail to two reefs, as well as a staysail, which would be vital in the Atlantic and possibly the genoa and even a reduced spinnaker.

Repairs
The work seemed impossible given the means on board (a bit of glue, epoxy resin and some pieces of carbon) but the "extra-terrestrial" believed he could do it. He was an excellent technician and knew how to handle composites. But above all, he was determined. That is why he decided to head for a haven, Stewart Island to the south of New Zealand, recommended by Peter Blake. It was a long way away and during the voyage he set about tackling the work. When he reached Port Pegasus – «a bay that was almost as big as the Arcachon Basin» - early on 8th January, the work was already well advanced. He had even thought about how to erect his 180 kg spar. «In a notebook, noted the Vendée Robinson Crusoe, I started to make sketches, which I later realised resembled those used by the Parisian engineers, who raised the Obelisk in the Place de la Concorde in Paris in the nineteenth Century.» Before that other ingenious ways had to be found to heat the glue and resin, reduce them, and adjust everything to the nearest millimetre. The time came to set up the boom as a crane in order to hoist the tube and the well conceived shrouds, blocks and ropes. In spite of many unforeseen circumstances such as his health and the boat dragging its anchor when the wind got up, almost leading Yves to start his engine, meaning he would be forced to retire, he did however succeed in his incredible endeavour.

Epilogue
The exhausted skipper of Aquitaine Innovations set sail again on 17th January from his haven in the southern seas, ten days after his arrival and a month after his boat was dismasted. While the boat had recovered the use of her sails, inside, the boat was empty. Yves was clearly lacking food to complete his non-stop solo voyage. Once again, he had to come up with an ingenious plan, show perseverance and courage to get his body used to eating the minimum, until he caught his first sea bream and flying fish in the Atlantic. He was to savour the rewards of his efforts at 15h47 on 16th March, when he crossed the finishing line in Les Sables d’Olonne after 126 days 23 hours and 36 minutes spent at sea. Yves finished 13th in the race and two other competitors came in after him. You may not believe it, but this is a true story.

Patrice Carpentier
 

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