Lorient (AFP)

Saber on his belt and traditional fighter costume, the Japanese Kojiro Shiraishi impressed the day he left the Vendée Globe in 2016. Four years later, he returned for a new round-the-world trip with a high-performance boat, sponsors and a professional sailor status.

"Kojiro today, it's great, he has the chance and the talent to meet a sponsor, to have a brand new boat, a flying boat, he is seen a bit like a UFO in our little Landerneau of the race offshore ", tells AFP expert navigator Roland Jourdain, who has been helping Shiraishi since their meeting four years ago.

Kojiro Shiraishi, based in Kamakura, a coastal town south of Tokyo, developed a passion for ocean racing very early on. Trained in the merchant navy, he dreamed of going around the world. His encounter with the tour-du-mondiste Yukoh Tada sealed his fate as an adventurous sailor.

Tada passed on his knowledge to Shiraishi, before committing suicide in 1991. To each of his ships, Shiraishi then gave the name of 'Spirit of Yukoh'. The very first one was the one with which he left alone to tour the world for 176 days. It is still under the name of 'Spirit of Yukoh' that he took the start of the Vendée Globe, in 2016, aboard a 10-year-old boat.

- "Miracle" -

"I got to know the Vendée Globe thanks to my master, Yukoh Tada. I had come to see the start three times, I was like all those people you see on the pontoons. And there, I said to myself: a day, I will do this race ", remembers AFP Kojiro Shiraishi.

“The last project was a last minute project. Getting to the start was already a great victory. Being Japanese, being able to do the Vendée Globe is extremely difficult, it's like a Frenchman going to Japan to do sumo! had a miracle, ”he continues.

The magic of the mythical world tour will only have operated for a few weeks. A month after departure, her mast broke off South Africa.

“It upset me. It was a 30-year dream that ended prematurely. But when I arrived in Cape Town, I saw all the messages of support,” recalls the Japanese skipper, who then said to himself : there is still a craze behind me, it's not over, it's just a start for in 4 years ".

- "Really zen" -

His boat was then sent to Japan and he took the opportunity to share his passion with the public - who had followed him thanks to the two big television channels NHK and TV Asahi - and with the sponsors that he took to sea. Among them , DMG Mori, a powerful manufacturer of machine tools, has become its main partner for the Vendée Globe 2020/2021, which will start on November 8 in Sables d'Olonne (Vendée).

Today, at 53 years old, the Japanese sailor can boast of having a new generation boat capable of "flying", built for him - a sistership (twin boat) of the Charal monohull skippered by Jérémie Beyou. But also to have a real team around him and to receive a salary as a skipper.

Kojiro Shiraishi was not immersed in the culture of ocean racing that permeates the west coast of France.

"This is what may seem to be his disadvantage or make the look of others weird in relation to him", notes Roland Jourdain. "He's not very extroverted, he doesn't speak French, very little English, so he has little contact. This disadvantage, in fact, is a strength too, he builds his inner world, the way he is approaching his race, he is not taken aback by all that ".

"He has a truly zen and ultra-positive disposition and, for a Vendée Globe, he's a huge force," Jourdain underlines.

Shiraishi draws his mental strength in particular from Iaido, an ancestral Japanese martial art, which is practiced with a sword. To finally become a Vendée Globe finisher.

© 2020 AFP