Paris (AFP)
"A whole guy, deeply kind, with great qualities as a sailor": This is how the winner of the Vendée Globe, Yannick Bestaven, speaks of his great friend Arnaud Boissières, who entered the history of racing around the world on Thursday in lonely for having completed it four times in a row.
In a freezing cold that the heat emanating from the human tide that came to welcome him has not mitigated, Boissières (La Mie Câline - Artisans Artipôle) crossed the finish line on Thursday morning off Les Sables d'Olonne, a city he has made his own since 2008.
"Getting to the end has already a value, and even more to have completed it several times. I am lucky to finish four times, it has a value compared to my partners, I am not lying to my partners. My project is not a + bling bling + project but of human value ", underlines to AFP this skipper who lives and breathes Vendée Globe.
- Friend Bestaven -
"He did a geo history school to study the round-the-world route. In his room, he had lots of photos of the skippers, the boats. He's a passionate person. I didn't know I was going going around the world one day, it was well anchored in his head, "told AFP Bestaven, who came to hug friend Boissières hard on Thursday at the end of the channel.
The two skippers have known each other since their high school years.
They made the 400 blows on the Arcachon basin with a third thief, Jean-Marie Dauris, who became the sports director of the Bestaven team.
"We were lucky that our respective parents had a small sailboat, we stung them, we had little races between us, we slept on board", remembers Boissières.
His mother, whom he calls every Sunday, was sailing on a wooden dinghy before embarking her husband, Arnaud and his two sisters on a pleasure boat.
Barely a young adult, he suffered from leukemia.
"It really played on his behavior, the fact that he takes things lightly. Arnaud, it's all a joke, a joke, he's the first to get on the bar, sometimes to put himself naked! It's a hell of a life, "reveals Bestaven.
- Calimero -
In 2001, the two friends set up a project for the Mini-Transat.
The Boissières boat is called Diabolo and that of Bestaven, Satanas.
Bestaven won his very first race, Boissières finished 3rd.
Since then, he has only been sailing.
Seven times the Transat Jacques Vabre, twice the Route du Rhum, an attempt at a world tour record with Olivier de Kersauzon.
Among others.
"It's part of my life, I even imagine having a cruise ship one day. I would say that even the Vendée Globe is part of my life. Since 2006, I've only been thinking about that and it's pretty incredible, I manage not to sleep at night sometimes on land. It's a fabulous race, "blows the sailor, who already has his fifth Vendée Globe in mind.
Nicknamed "Cali" in reference to Calimero, this cartoon character who always says that "it's really too unfair", Boissières relishes the life he has at sea, but also with his two boys, Hugo (14 years old) and Léo (4 years old).
"I'm not saying that life is too unfair, on the contrary. But I tend to complain all the time, and a lot more on land than at sea, in the end. I always have little stories. But at Calimero, great stories happen too. And me, my great stories are linked to the Vendée Globe ".
He pauses, then resumes: "It's true that I complain a lot!"
© 2021 AFP