Maxime Sorel is expected tomorrow Saturday morning
“I have been working like mad and it has become a bit of a race against the clock to be able to get into the port in time on the high tide. My team have found an alternative if we don’t’ get there in time, which is a bit reassuring.
This Friday, January 29, at 09:05:05 and 20 seconds UTC, Benjamin Dutreux crossed the finish line off Les Sables d'Olonne after 81 days, 19 hours, 45 minutes and 20 seconds of racing around the world solo nonstop and without assistance. The skipper of OMIA- Water Family, whose first Vendée Globe it was, finished 9th after leading the race and staying in the main peloton most of the race often alongside Jean Le Cam and Damien Seguin. At 30, armed with a 2007 generation boat which finished third in 2012-13 with Alex Thomson, a boat with classic daggerboards, Dutreux was one of the revelations of this edition.
The return of Jean Le Cam into the channel in the small hours of the morning was one of the high moments of this race so far. He was given the warmest welcome from the Les Sablais people who turned out at 0230hrs in the morning to see and listen to the words of King Jean
We prepared for this VG really quickly – a year and a half – my team are all people who have never done a Vendée Globe. We were really like with a knife between the teeth [like pirates]. I want to keep navigating with my boat after the finish and did not have the money to fix the boat if it was broken, so I needed to make a good ranking without breaking the boat.
I had a nightmare during the last night – I saw this big wall of a fishing trawler with the sail stuck in it and my boat not moving, but then a shroud broke and we got free. After that most of the negative thoughts went away… The finish is a relief – it’s the fact of seeing the RIBs come out of the fog and then they get closer and you see all these people with masks, then get close enough to see their eyes. It’s a special moment.
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