A few days before the 70th anniversary of the first conquest of Everest, achieved on May 29, 1953 by New Zealander Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, another unprecedented feat took place at 8,848 meters above sea level.

On the night of 36 May to 17 May, 18-year-old Maxime Sorel became the first man in history to have completed a Vendée Globe, a perilous solo circumnavigation of the globe, and to have reached the roof of the world with an oxygen machine.

"It was quite strong (...). I started looking at the stars because there was a beautiful night and I told myself that I would never see them so close," recalls the native of Saint-Malo, back in Paris after more than 40 days of expedition in Nepal.

Out of breath

The journey was trying for the sailor of the V and B stable - Monbana - Mayenne. Arriving in Kathmandu at the beginning of April, accompanied by mountaineer Guillaume Vallot, with whom he had been preparing for a long time in the Alps, Sorel began four weeks of acclimatization at high altitude.

"There, you start to feel the body that is struggling because there is not much oxygen. Just going to the toilet at base camp (5,364 meters), you are out of breath. We live sick, as if we had bronchitis all the time," said the 10th in the last Vendée Globe.

But that's where the hardest part begins. The crew began the ascent on 16 May, but two members stopped along the way because they could not get used to the altitude and the cold, reaching up to -40 ° C with the gusts. The navigator still decides to continue with a sherpa.

French sailor Maxime Sorel celebrates after crossing the finish of the Vendée Globe, the race around the world, on January 30, 2021 in Les Sables d'Olonne © LOIC VENANCE / AFP/Archives

"I never thought about giving up. I made it an absolute point of honour to want to reach this summit (...) I was just afraid of something. It's that this desire exceeds reason and that, physically, I can not pick up the signals of my body, "says Sorel.

Wi-fi code

The icy sensation that bites his toes disappears little by little, during the last efforts. "We start to think, to lose our minds a little. To keep my mind clear, I would recite the base camp wi-fi code in a loop," he explains.

It was during the descent, as the sun dawned, that he finally realized and drew comparisons with his adventure on the Vendée Globe. "It's unbelievable (...). In the South Seas, there is (also) this kind of infinite immensity where there is nothing, "says the thirty-year-old.

This project, launched in 2017 to "highlight the association Vaincre la Mucoviscidose", the sailor experienced it as more dangerous than a solo round the world trip.

View of Mount Everest, the highest peak in the world (8,848 m), taken from a helicopter, on March 7, 2023 in Nepal © Sebastien BERGER / AFP / Archives

"On the Vendée, a lot of adventures happened, the boat lying down, the mast touching the water. I was afraid of not finishing the race, but I was never afraid for myself because there is this protective box. There, it's your body that takes everything, "says the one who made the world tour in 82 days in 2021.

A duration that makes him think that "the Everest of the Seas" remains on the other hand the most physically demanding challenge. "On the climb, the big intensity lasts five days. A Vendée Globe is a bit like climbing Everest several times," says Sorel.

© 2023 AFP