Yannick Bestaven wins the Vendée Globe 2020. -
LOIC VENANCE / POOL / AFP
Yannick Bestaven won the 9th edition of the Vendée Globe
The skipper on Maître Coq has recovered from a disappointment after losing the lead in the race off Brazil
Lucid and persevering, he never let himself down
At the beginning of January, we were wondering here even if Yannick Bestaven had not already won the Vendée Globe when he had just crossed Cape Horn with 100 miles ahead of Charlie Dalin and 400 over Thomas Rettant.
The prophecy has certainly come true, but the paper has frankly aged badly.
The comfortable victory promised to Maître Coq turned into a race against the clock because of a clever mixture of meteorological whim and "a small error in strategy", according to Michel Desjoyeaux, which caused him to lose the equivalent of a day and a half of navigation off the Brazilian coast.
“It was not good to be first in fact, laughed the winner when he arrived at Les Sables d'Olonne.
When I was first, I got caught, and there Charlie [Dalin], I took enough hours to get past him, with the compensation time.
"
Sailor without wind, painter without canvas
The tone was a little less cheerful 20 days before arriving on the Vendée coast.
We remember in particular this vacation where Bestaven had trouble hiding his frustration after two days spent in a soft [no wind] that his pursuers, to whom he had served as a scout, took pleasure in bypassing.
"It's hard because everyone has come back," he would say then.
It was expected.
But after more than 60 days of racing, you have to have morale.
"
The slap makes him bend without breaking and, as often with champions of his caliber, forces him to draw on unsuspected resources.
In original version in the text at the finish: “the Vendée Globe is hard, you think you've thought of everything, imagined everything and finally you have to look for resources that are very deep within yourself.
And, even though the burden became too heavy for the adventurer, he could always rely on his team on land, to which he was linked via a WhatsApp group made up of his press officer, his companion, the boat captain, the director, Anne Combier (team manager) and her mental coach, Eric Blondeau.
The latter compares Bestaven's Brazilian distress to that of a painter to whom brushes and paints were left but the canvas removed.
“It was the difficulty of acting on the elements that was the problem at that time.
When you can't act on the elements, you act on your posture.
Resting was one of those things.
But also take the opportunity to make repairs, take advantage of taking care of it, take care of the boat and simply wait, be ready to bounce back.
He accepted his reality.
He saw the others pass in front, but we mainly worked on his ability to react once the wind was more favorable.
We worked on its ability to explode once nature agreed to give it a little benefit.
"
Explode, yes, but without getting too enthusiastic either.
Because in this interminable circumnavigation, there is nothing better than a false hope to finish your morale.
It was therefore necessary to set out again with concrete and accessible objectives in the short term.
Anne Combier reported: "the only solution he had was to change his goal and say to himself 'you're still in the top five'".
After that, he rebuilt himself and eventually regained his confidence.
"Blondeau continues:" we stuck on a restart, on a road, on the Azores, we stuck each time on an available and visible event.
Without going on mental peregrinations on a hypothetical arrival in Les Sables d'Olonne.
"
Maestro Bestaven, Bestaven, Bestaven
Finally, it is interesting to note that the compensations that Yannick Bestaven was sure to benefit from at the finish line never entered into account in this process of rebounding towards victory.
It was not until the very end of the race, his team Manager told us, that the calculator started to smoke: “it started to come into play the last week because we knew he could not catch up with the all of the miles behind Charlie Dalin.
"
It was also one week before the end of the Vendée Globe that his team began to communicate on the full extent of the galleys crossed by Maître Coq: sails torn, balcony torn off Cape Horn and we were on the way.
“On arrival, he had everything on it, it looked like a pirate ship with all the sails in the air,” laughs Anne Combier.
The skipper was not in better condition.
The Maître Coq team took care for a long time to make up a probable sprained knee and a cracked rib in small sores so as not to boost the morale of the opposing troops.
In war, as in war.
Bestaven's morale made a comeback in the trade winds of the South Atlantic where he quickly regained the tactical sense that had allowed him to dominate the head of the fleet for nearly a month, until end up styling Thomas Rouillard at the post in a final straight line to make Marc Raquil blush, depending on a clever North option.
"In no case has it gone very low," concludes Blondeau.
And this is also what allowed him to come back very quickly to a remarkable awareness and lucidity.
One of the most important things we worked on before this Vendée Globe was on Yannick's ability to improvise.
And I have to say he was a maestro for it.
It had to be that to overcome the depressions.
Literally as well as figuratively.
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