Armel Tripon and his blanket.

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Pierre Bouras - L'Occitane en Provence

  • On Sunday, the Nantes skipper will start the Vendée Globe with an innovative application on his phone.

  • This app, produced with the University of Nantes, is used to measure the lucidity of the Nantes browser.

  • Every six hours, Armel Tripon will have to answer various questions at sea.

When technology is used to prevent the onset of hallucinations.

On Sunday, in Les Sables d'Olonne, Nantes skipper Armel Tripon will start his first Vendée Globe with an innovative application on his phone.

Its name: LuciEole.

Its goal: to measure the browser's lucidity.

“On the last Route du Rhum [in 2018], I had gone to look very far physically, there had been meteorological events which had meant that I could no longer sleep,” recalls the 45-year-old sailor.

During the event he wins, he does not sleep for more than 48 hours.

“It was stiff…” he smiles today.

But, never again, he told himself now too.

At the end of 2019, the skipper then turns to the “Motricity, Interactions, Performance” laboratory at the University of Nantes.

“Armel came to me telling me that like many sailors, because of fatigue, stress, noise, lack of sleep, he could go through hallucinatory periods, remembers Arnaud Guével, professor and researcher at the Nantes laboratory. .

He asked me what could be done to get performance support in this area.

But also, to be safe as a sailor.

"

A skipper confuses Cape Horn with the pontoon

Examples of skippers in hallucinations are legion and some stories would almost smile if they took place elsewhere than in dangerous and inhospitable areas.

One day, a navigator explained that during his passage at Cape Horn, he believed that his boat had arrived at the pontoon… luckily he did not get out.

Another had said he went to bed telling his crew to handle the boat well… while he was solo!

The application, tested by Tripon over the last few races, is "a lifeline that will keep him attentive to his sleep, his fatigue, his lucidity", according to Guével.

“Armel explains that when you pass the Cape of Good Hope, for example, there is an immensity in front of you and you have to take the right options depending on the weather and your racing strategy.

It is therefore necessary to have enough lucidity at that time to make very binding decisions for the future.

"

A questionnaire every six hours

Every six hours, the Nantes resident will have to answer a questionnaire with seven questions.

The application, depending on what it responds at the time and what it recorded on the previous question session, then returns a signal with a color code, red can be qualified as a "worrying signal".

If the skipper does not respond after six hours, the app will call back after ten hours.

For example, he is asked: what is his level of fatigue on a scale of 1 to 10?

Does this fatigue weigh on his mood and his maneuvers?

“This application helps him never to fall into moments when he will lose his lucidity.

»It also prevents the skipper from falling into too long a sleep ... Like Alex Thomson, in 2018, on the Route du Rhum.

Yet at the head of the fleet, the British, exhausted, had taken so much of his nose that he ended up stranded on a rock on the north coast of Butterfly Island in Guadeloupe and lost the competition ...

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A tram is dedicated to Armel Tripon 

In Nantes, a tram, visible on line 1 since Monday, is dedicated to the skipper Armel Tripon.

The oar is entirely in the colors of the Nantes navigator's boat.

The tram will transmit daily news from Armel Tripon by means of audio messages that the skipper will send from his boat.

  • Tired

  • Sables d'Olonne

  • Vendée Globe

  • Sport

  • Nantes

  • Sleep