The new Veolia has moored up at the Kairos pontoon in the inner harbour in Concarneau. Roland Jourdain and his team have just been through another day’s sailing to get to know the new boat. The Lombard designed boat which he sailed alongside the frontrunners in the last Vendée Globe before colliding with a sea mammal, was beginning to look her age. To defend his title Roland Jourdain has therefore chosen to charter Sébastien Josse’s former BT, a Farr designed boat, which can offer similar standards of performance to the leading prototypes, even if the newer boats have a slight edge. Reliability versus innovation. Bilou has made a wise, cautious choice as in the Route du Rhum there are enough dangers along the way to ensure that sheer speed is not the only factor to consider. We met up with the skipper down on the pontoon…

Why did you decide to charter a boat for the next Route du Rhum?
“One thing was very clear. As the winner last time around, I simply could not imagine not being there at the start in 2010. That would have shown a lack of respect for my rivals and the organiser. And of course, the challenge itself is quite exciting.
In fact, I haven’t yet taken any firm decision about my future, but it’s obvious that after three Vendée Globe races, I would like to go and do something else. So that meant we weren’t going to start work on a new boat… You have to be Michel Desjoyeaux to tackle that sort of challenge.”

And then you chose Sébastien Josse’s old boat…
“There were quite a few constraints. Firstly, we had already planned to carry out a series of PR operations during the summer, so that meant that time was not on our side. We needed to look for a boat where we would have to work to get used to her and understand her, but where the development programme would be limited to a minimum. I really felt that S

So you’ve been able to compare her now to your previous boat?
“Yes indeed and there’s a huge difference. We now have a boat that is much faster, particularly when sailing downwind. To the extent that I’ve even said that if I’d had such a boat in the last Vendée Globe… In any case, what I can say is that up until the accident, I wasn’t doing too badly… But then, it’s clear too that looking at my way of sailing, I would have liked to make a few changes, but now we’re going down this road, we’re not going to turn around. So, what we need to do now is sail as much as we can in order to be ready for the Route du Rhum. After that God willing...”

Nevertheless, you have done some work on the boat?
“Yes, in particular, we’ve tried to make the boat lighter. Following the incident in the last Transat Jacques Vabre, the boat was rebuilt last winter. So for us, the only work that was required for the Route du Rhum was trying to make weight savings. We have managed to save around a hundred kilos, which is quite some weight.”

Sailing aboard a boat, which you haven’t prepared yourself is a new experience for you?
“Yes, indeed and it’s something we should do more often. You can learn a lot looking at how others have dealt with the problems we’ll be facing. You could say that we don’t sail enough on other people’s boats.”