Vendée Globe

"It wasn’t very easy over the last few days with some rough conditions in the Bay of Biscay. The gear was beginning to suffer, but the main thing is we made it to the finish. It’s normal that conditions were difficult as we’re in February in the North Atlantic. I never really gave myself any real goals in terms of positions. With Brit Air in the beginning our aim was to complete the round the world voyage and sail well. If we managed to do both, looking at previous races I thought it would be possible to get a good place in the rankings. I’m proud to have finished second behind Michel Desjoyeaux. No one could beat him this year, so I’m very pleased with my place. There were times when it was difficult. There were moments of doubting and stress aboard the boat, when conditions were bad. And then, there were magical moments; Rounding the Horn was a great moment. Jean’s rescue was something I could never have imagined, as it was an incredible scenario. So the three months passed really quickly.
I think I have lost some weight, because at the end I didn’t have much left to eat. I had nothing left after yesterday’s lunch and I’d been rationing myself for a while. So I was pleased to have some crepes, fresh bread and butter this morning.

I was knocked down in the South Pacific with the mast over in the water and I lost my wind vane and didn’t have wind info for about a month and a half. So I sailed by intuition. It was only at the end of the race that the boat suffered any real damage apart from that. The protective cover was ripped off by a giant wave in the Bay of Biscay. There’s a piece of the mast track missing too, so I had to finish with three reefs.
I think the race was well prepared with the team. We had done quite a lot of racing. I wanted to set out on a boat that I knew perfectly and where I had gained a lot of experience. I was surprised in the southern ocean at the beginning, but you get used to those conditions, so I really learnt a lot."

Armel le Cléac'h's first words on the podium
 

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