Vendée Globe

The sun is coming up. Lying in your bunk, with your head buried in the pillow, keeping your feet warm under the duvet, you awake after twenty or thirty minutes of sleep and you start thinking back to the difficulties of the night. There are nights like that, when nothing goes right, when the alarm continually rings because of the strong winds pushing the boat off course or because the sails need to be trimmed. Understandable really, why you don't feel like leaping out of bed.
 

No smells of coffee and toast here. In the Big South Hotel, there is no room service. You have to do everything for yourself, so you finally accept the inevitable and crawl out of your duvet. Oh my God! She's really moving around It's freezing! You think of the frontrunners, who are already back in warm weather. Quickly, fill up the hot water bottle. Turn on the gas and slide back into the sleeping bag that is still warm from your body heat. 
In a half awake state, you imagine what it is like sitting down in the kitchen having breakfast with the family with toast, butter and home-made strawberry jam. You can smell the slightly burnt toast, the rich aroma of the coffee with the mild milky flavour. You even think of what it is like to grab your satchel and head off for school. You are missing the fresh baguette and salty butter that would really take you there. Last time you enjoyed those pleasures was back in the Bay of Biscay more than two months ago.
This morning you're going to have to make do with cereals to get your carbohydrate levels up. Gradually assimilated by the body, they provide regular fuel and power for the muscles to face the cold and heavy work ahead. At around lunchtime looking at what is left in the week's food bag, you plump for a large portion of pasta with cheese and tomato sauce. The meal, prepared ashore was freeze-dried. The recipe is simple: Add boiling water until you reach the line, wait a few minutes or a bit longer and it is done! Eat up while it's hot, directly from the bag. No plates, no washing up. All so easy and practical! Of course, after two months, it gets a bit boring and it's rather constipating for the digestive system. But you don't have the choice. You put up with it, because it's easy and saves weight. The bag will end up back in the rubbish bin in Les Sables d’Olonne. Nothing is thrown into the sea.
Now it's time to dress up to go outside. If dress up is the right word. We're not talking about a suit or cocktail dress, or the latest fashion, here what you need is the gear for the Forties with a tight-fitting fleece and oilskins.  One more important detail: Don't forget to keep some sweets in your pocket, just in case. Eaten just before a manoeuvre, these sugars, which are absorbed quickly by the body offer a quick burst of energy, a boost for the muscles. This booster also calms you by stimulating the secretion of serotonin, a calming, anti-stress sedative. This will allow you to manoeuvre safely. However, this molecule does not only have advantages. It also intervenes directly on your desire to sleep. The advertisement announcing « a burst of energy and you're off again!» should be replaced by « a burst of energy and back to sleep!» You need to know that when you are tired, you need to ensure you stay awake in order to be alert. This is a major worry in the final days of the race. You're going to be running out of sweets and chocolate. Rationing becomes necessary. A tragedy!
You may be surprised to be consuming so much sugar without putting on any weight. Those large meals are just compensating for the use of energy, which you tend to under-estimate. Just standing up in this universe in perpetual motion requires almost 1000 calories. Add to that the lack of sleep, a lot of physical activity, losses due to the cold, the wind and damp and a huge amount of mental work and you become a big consumer of sugars and you will end up with a diet for the Southern Ocean of around 6000 calories a day.
This is nothing like a race such as the Figaro. During that race, you hardly eat at all. A lack of time. No appetite, too much stress. There just remains the feeling of hunger, which for some helps resist the temptation to fall asleep. This behaviour, contrary to the rules of a good sportsman's diet, was proved scientifically a short while ago. Neurones in the region of the hypothalamus, which is sensitive to the lack of sugar excite other neurones, which keep you awake, making use of the body's energy reserves, and increase your aggressiveness. This behaviour dates back to the first human beings, who absolutely had to get food to survive. Feeling acute hunger, they simply could not fall asleep, but instead needed to use all their energy to run as fast as possible and strike as hard as they could. The aggression that can be felt, when you are hungry is a survival instinct linked to our origins, like many others. But in the Vendée Globe, this process can only last for a few days and beyond that, it is necessary to recharge the batteries with rich and heavy meals. 
And drink. Here, the source will not dry up, as it is the ocean itself. With the desalination unit, you obtain fresh water as you need it each day. It's water that doesn't have a lot of taste, and is low in mineral salts. Food or tablets will easily compensate for this lack. There is one major drawback however. In the south, water in a bottle is simply too cold. You don't feel like drinking it. With each mouthful, the mouth is numbed, and the throat blocked by the feeling of icy water slipping down to the stomach. It makes you shiver. So if you want to drink, there is nothing better than a tea or hot chocolate. Maybe a little coffee, but not too much. Water is in fact necessary for the transformation of food into energy. Even if most food contains a certain amount of water, usually around two-thirds, that is not enough. You must drink. Here you require 3 to 4 litres a day without counting the water required to rehydrate your freeze-dried food.
Try to eat at regular times, without eating between meals. As is the case for sleep, there are periods when the body is ready for meals. In general in the morning, at lunchtime and in the evening. So stick to that. If you are really hungry have a snack in the afternoon and something to eat in the night, if possible before going to sleep. In this way, the calories used for digesting are not taken away from the work energy and the sugars help you sleep. And spoil yourself. Today, the food was good and you worked hard. There is still something missing. Maybe next time you should bring a table cloth and a wine glass.
Jean-Yves Chauve
 

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