At the finish of the last Vendée Globe 6 hours and 30 minutes separated PRB skipper Vincent Riou on from his rival, Jean Le Cam on Bonduelle. An incredibly short time in relation to the distance they covered sailing around the world. The Bretons had fought this battle for the lead from the start of the race and were to be joined by the British skipper Mike Golding on the way back up the Atlantic.
The final result would remain undecided until the very end, as Vincent Riou remembers.
As they were about to round the St. Helena high, Vincent made his getaway with Jean. This lead was established a fortnight into the race and the duo were to manage it wisely in the Fifties. As they rounded the Horn, Le Cam took the lead. Remaining serene, Riou followed 15h 30’ later, with Golding (Ecover) coming back out of nowhere to join in the party. The climb back up the Atlantic promised to be thrilling with three boats in contention. As they left the Pacific, Jean opted for a relatively eastern route to get around the St. Helena high that he had dealt with so skilfully on the way down two months earlier, while Vincent moved up between the yellow boat and the continent to take advantage of the small disturbances that can frequently be found off the coast of Brazil. With Mike Golding clinging on, the skipper of PRB regained the lead on 9th January 2005 at 40° south. Then, the Owen/Clarke designed boat, faster than the 5-year old Finot Conq creation, overtook him two days later. But the British sailor was soon to be disappointed as the mainsail halyard on Ecover broke twice, forcing the skipper to climb his mast to carry out repairs. The time he lost then left him at a disadvantage for the rest of the Atlantic.
On 13th January, PRB took control and would never relinquish the reins again… until the penultimate day of the race, when Bonduelle got back to be at the same distance to the finish as PRB.
The Equator and after
As Riou crossed the Equator, PRB had a lead of 110 miles over Bonduelle and 230 over Ecover. Because of the upwind superiority of his two rivals, Vincent would do the opposite of what was expected. He did not keep his opponent in check by sailing between his rival and the finish, but instead he chose the best route his computer suggested based on the polars of the orange boat and the weather forecasts. By acting in this way, Vincent sailed more miles and so his lead in the rankings continued to shrink. There were two periods. On 25th January, Jean was only 39 miles behind. The next day Vincent regained the upper hand. Five days later, the suspense mounted again. This time there were only 25 miles separating the boats in terms of distance to the finish.
Vincent explains: «In short, we can say that the Azores high contained several systems. I was looking for the most northerly system, right up level with the English Channel to get around via the west, while Jean continued to remain to the east, hoping that the high would move.» On 31st January in the 15h rankings, around 600 miles from the finish, Riou’s lead as down to 4.5 miles. They were not side by side, as PRB was sailing a long way NW of Bonduelle, but in the next rankings they found themselves equidistant from Les Sables, with what looked to be a slight advantage for the yellow boat. That was until PRB changed tack and began his sprint on the port tack on a direct route for Vendée, while at the same time, Bonduelle was struggling upwind on a variable course.
On 2nd February…like Desjoyeaux
On 1st February, the advantage swung back to Vincent, who could finally breathe a sigh of relief: «I was on edge all the way back up the Atlantic,» the skipper of PRB admits today, as weather is not an exact science and you really need to be confident to resist the temptation of a close contact fight to keep your rival in check. His analysis was: «If Jean had followed in my wake as soon as we picked up the trade winds in the Southern Hemisphere, he would have overtaken me. With sheer speed I would not have been able to do anything.» As for Mike Golding, he was bit a further back and even if he hadn’t had the problem with his keel at the last moment, the podium places would have been the same. The duel finished the next day, as everyone knows, with the advantage going to PRB, who crossed the finish after 87 days and 10 hours of sailing and 6 hours and 30’ahead of the runner-up. It all happened on 2nd February, the same date as Desjoyeaux four years later!
Epilogue
"With Jojo, alias Sébastien Josse, then at the helm of the Finot/Conq designed VMI, we knew we were much slower than the four new boats in the fleet (the two Lombard designs, Virbac-Paprec, the most suited to wide range of conditions and Ecover). That was something we had to put up with. We were not as fast when power was required (upwind/reaching) but downwind, we were fast as we had lightened our boats as much as possible, while the others had a bigger load. We were lucky with the weather: a downwind voyage down the Atlantic, then the southern ocean without any real."
