Vincent Riou noted this weekend: «Four years ago, no one was expecting such a closely fought contest right up to the finish of the race (the 2004 Vendée Globe that he won). This time, however, everyone believed it likely that there would be several boats arriving within sight of each other, and yet we saw the widest gaps between boats finishing that we’ve ever seen in the Vendée Globe. There was a gap of one week between the first two boats…» And indeed almost as long between the second and third boats. Then after that, three boats finished within twelve hours, which had never happened before in the Vendée Globe. A race that no one could have foreseen. We look back today at some exceptional finishes.
Based on redress
It would appear quite normal for the International Jury to grant redress to a competitor that the race directors have asked to divert to offer help to a competitor in distress. This is not that uncommon in ocean racing, as those racing are the best placed to go to help their fellow competitor. In the first Vendée Globe, Loïck Peyron went to the rescue of Philippe Poupon, whose boat was in distress in the entrance to the Indian Ocean and was awarded compensation. This was to increase the suspense on the way back up the Atlantic, when the sailor from La Baule closed the gap on the leader, Titouan Lamazou. In the end though, taking into account the redress there were still 16h and 30’ between them.
Fighting for third place
We have already explained that three competitors “shared” third place in this Vendée Globe. Samantha Davies (Roxy) was the third to cross the finish line, Marc Guillemot (Safran) took third place from her on the podium because of his redress with the extremely narrow advantage of 1hour and 20’ and Vincent Riou (PRB) was granted joint third place by the jury. This was the position he was in on the water, when he went to the assistance of Jean Le Cam, before losing his mast and being forced to retire.
47 minutes between Thiercelin and Laurent in 1997
It was also redress that would intervene for second and third place in 1997. Officially, the gap separating Marc Thiercelin and Hervé Laurent exceeded 32 hours at the finish. In reality it was much closer: 47 minutes. The closest result in the history of the race… Which could have been even closer. Both sailors were granted compensation for going to look for the Canadian, Gerry Roufs, who disappeared in the Pacific: 34 hours for Thiercelin and 2 hours and 30 minutes for Laurent. On the water, the gap had always been maintained between the two boats. As they approached Vendée, Hervé was ahead of Marc. «The day before the finish, remembered Hervé Laurent, Philippe Jeantot asked us to ease off, as there was a big storm blowing in Les Sables making it impossible to enter the harbour.» The organiser also indicated to Hervé that it would be preferable for Thiercelin to be the second to cross the line to make the result clearer for the public, as he was in any case second because of his redress. This was a unique occurrence in the history of the Vendée. Hervé Laurent crossed the finish line, which was not yet in place at around 23h00 on 25th February 1997, before sailing off further out to sea to await the arrival off the coast of Barges the next day at dawn of Crédit Immobilier skippered by Thiercelin. Hervé Laurent got underway again and followed him in to allow each finish to be celebrated correctly: a gap of 47’ after 115 days of sailing. On corrected time, in the official rankings that became 32 hours and 17’
Other close finishes
There have been several dating back to the first Vendée Globe race. Out of the seven boats to be ranked, the first five finished within the same week, with less than one day between Jeantot and Follenfant. In 1993, the close finish between van den Heede and Philippe Poupon was also a great moment. In spite of losing his mast before the Azores, Philippe continued under jury rig and mizzen and ended up only twelve hours behind Jean-Luc, who grabbed second place from him. In 2001, Dominic Wavre and Thomas Coville arrived more or less together in fifth and sixth place, only 4 hours and 40 minutes apart. But the closest finish of all was in the same year between Bernard Gallay and Josh Hall, with just an hour between them, when they finished in 8th and 9th place after 111 days of sailing. In 2005, the trio at the front could well have finished close to each other, if the ill-fated Mike Golding had not lost his keel fifty miles or so from the finish.
Patrice Carpentier
