Les Sables-d'Olonne (France) (AFP)

At six, he was fascinated by the sea. At 36, Charlie Dalin completed his first round the world trip with panache, after having braved the raging elements in a great solitude that suited him well, during the ninth edition of the Vendée Globe.

Wednesday evening off Les Sables d'Olonne, he was the first to cross the finish line of the Vendée Globe, a race he led over 60 percent of the route, aboard a flying boat of latest generation (Apivia).

"Ocean racing is all about anticipation, you're all alone, mental strength is important. I'm a rather cautious person by nature but I like challenges and difficulty. I like this fight against nature and myself. I realize myself well in difficulty. The harder it is, the more I feel like I'm good, "Dalin told AFP.

This Havre, exiled in Port Laforêt and Concarneau, has been a professional sailor since 2011. A naval architect by training, he started sailing by chance, while on vacation in Crozon (Finistère).

“At the beginning there was a fascination with the sea and it turned into a passion for sailing. A passion is never rational, I have the competitive side. I have the culture of sport. Exploiting the wind and the machine to go as fast as possible and find the fastest roads, that thrills me, ”he explains.

- "A real loner" -

From Sweden to Australia via Thailand, he set down his bags all over the world to finance his passion for the sea. And then, in 2011, he found a sponsor and took part in the benchmark race which trains the greatest sailors, the Solitaire du Figaro.

At each of his participations, he will systematically hang the podium.

"A good figarist necessarily makes a good 'vendée-globiste'!"

he launched in 2017, a few months before relentlessly embarking on his Vendée Globe 2020 project with the construction of a new boat under the supervision of François Gabart, winner in 2012/2013.

His companion in galleys at sea, Yann Eliès, with whom he won the Transat Jacques Vabre in 2019, describes him as someone "Cartesian and very modest".

"He has a difficult family history. He has formed a kind of super hard shell to pierce, it's someone who has trouble opening, it's an oyster," reports AFP Eliès.

"He has such a desire to master all the parameters of his race that he will forget about human relations with others. He's a real loner and real loners, we all have a crooked fart!"

continues Eliès.

- Hardness and pleasure -

For his dad Antoine, "it is no coincidence that he particularly likes solo racing".

"I think that loneliness is really not something that scares him, this extreme adventure, it's a challenge that really attracts him".

On the side of his team, we also confirm!

"The harshness of the solo sailor does not bother him, he prefers sailing on his own, making his own decisions, he prefers that way, and that's good because he will have done 80 days alone!", Slips the technical manager of the Apivia project, Antoine Carraz.

During these eighty days that the race around the world lasted, Dalin, a true metronome who wants to leave nothing to chance, will have learned to sleep.

“It was one of his weak points. He felt like he was losing performance when he was sleeping,” Carraz says.

While solitary at sea is for him, ashore Charlie Dalin enjoys his life with his partner and their two-and-a-half-year-old son Oscar, whom he can't wait to hug and hold. read books from the Indian Ocean before he fell asleep.

Then he will once again become the passionate sailor he is.

"Whatever happens, he will want to go back there (to the Vendée Globe) because he has had a good time in his Vendée Globe and he has had a lot of fun," says Carraz.

© 2021 AFP