Every Monday,
20 Minutes
gives the floor to a sports actor or actress who is making the news of the moment.
This week, they are even two: Armel Le Cléac'h and Kevin Escoffier.
The duo team up for the Transat Jacques Vabre on Maxi Banque Populaire XI in the ultimate category.
They confide in the similar trials they have gone through and the common adventure that awaits them.
Armel Le Cléac'h and Kevin Escoffier. Two castaways - one on the Route du Rhum in 2018, the other on the Vendée Globe 2020 - in search of redemption are joining forces for the Transat Jacques Vabre, which started on Sunday. The story telling would be perfect if it wasn't a little dishonest: the king of circumnavigation 2016-2017 had invited Escoffier on his Ultim'Maxi Banque Populaire XI long before it sank in the southern hemisphere.
"It was not:" let's go, let's go together because we had common adventures "", makes a point of clarifying Le Cléac'h, seated with his partner in a room of the Molitor where it is rather good to discuss around a coffee while watching the swimmers wet their necks by the pool.
Taking advantage of their last dry moments in the capital, the two skippers returned for 20
Minutes
to their respective adventures, the need to understand why they sank and the lessons they learned from it.
Kevin, how was the handling of the boat which is Armel's?
Kevin Escoffier (KE):
What is always interesting in the launching of boats is the discrepancy between the way we imagine the way it will behave and the discovery of real sensations.
I find it exhilarating to succeed in discovering what we had imagined.
Today, even though the boat was launched in April, we are certain.
On the performance, we have no doubts.
But these are complicated boats and there is still time to become more reliable.
Did Kevin have to take remedial lessons, he who came along on the way to the design of the boat?
Armel Le Cléac'h (ALC):
Not at all.
If I have done all the sailing since it was launched, Kevin must have missed only three or four.
We did the long races and the qualifiers together.
There is none who controls the boat more and that is what will be our strength when we take turns.
I would almost say Kevin knows him better than I do from a structural and design standpoint because he was part of the design office [for ten years at Banque Populaire].
Did it play in the choice of the pair?
ALC:
Yes!
The fact that Kevin has in mind the concept of the boat, the design, how it was imagined after losing the previous one in 2018 ... This is a strong argument in the balance, because we will still discover the boat and have small worries and this is where the engineering, design, design side of Kevin can bring us.
KE:
If Armel offered me to be part of the project, it is also because I have this double technical cap.
I'm here for the Jacques Vabre, but the boat is also in a development phase and I have to contribute for the future.
When we go sailing, we also wonder how it will be for solo sailing, for the Route du Rhum in 2022, etc.
There is a long-term global project.
Beyond a certain complementarity, you have one thing in common: you lost a boat at sea. Did you talk to each other about your shipwrecks?
ALC:
Of course.
Two years have passed between our respective adventures.
In 2018, Kevin was still in the Banque Populaire team and very integrated in the monitoring of the Route du Rhum.
He even picked me up in Vigo in the fishing boat to bring me back.
It was the first person with whom I could discuss what happened.
We wanted to understand.
How did we get there?
It was important to have all that in mind to imagine the new boat on which we were going to sail.
"
Then there was what happened to Kevin.
I followed this from afar because we could not help him immediately.
When he returned to France, I sent him a little message.
The invitation for the Jacques Vabre had been made upstream of the Vendée.
It was not, "come on let's go together because we had common adventures".
KE:
It was more because I no longer had a boat that it became easy for me to say yes (laughs).
Armel proposed to me before.
Kevin, you haven't even thought of asking yourself after what happened in the Vendée?
KE:
I'm not someone who likes to sit down too much so no, any more than I'm going to do the Jacques Vabre in revenge mode.
For Armel it may be different because it is a continuation of an Ultim 'at Banque Populaire.
Me, I come to do a boat race because I like it, it's my job, my passion, because I also enjoy sailing with Armel on a beautiful boat.
To come back to what Armel was saying earlier, there was a vital need to understand why you broke at sea to get back to the front with serenity?
ALC
: I needed to understand to know my share of responsibility for the accident on the Route du Rhum. Did I misuse the boat? Did I make a bad move? We had capsized a few months before in training and there I had had my share of responsibility. At the Route du Rhum, I did not capsize, my boat broke… It was important to know if I had made a mistake. And it was not. It allowed me to move forward. Because the question was also whether I wanted to leave on these boats.
KE:
We are both Cartesians in the way we navigate. We know this is one of the sports where there is a certain inevitability: weather parameters, ofnis (unidentified floating objects), etc. On the parameters that can be controlled, it is good not to make too many mistakes. I think that if Armel or I had been at fault in our accidents, it would have taken us longer to recover. I hadn't made a mistake. When I break the boat, I was not especially forcing on it. I was where I wanted in the Vendée, I was not attacking. It remains a wave and a mechanical rupture. Of course it is a failure. But now I can say that in addition to not being so bad sporting, I know how to get out of difficult situations.
How much did the lessons learned from these accidents support you in designing the boat?
ALC:
The fact that it broke after a collision with an ofni surprised us because we did not imagine that a break could lead to such endangerment, then the loss of the boat.
With the Banque Populaire team, we have always favored safety over performance, so we put things straight.
On the Ultim where we are currently sailing, we always have data on how the boat is working and alarms if we ever put too much strain on the platform.
It's linked to what we've been through.
KE:
It's still a mechanical sport, we are all used to sailing with degraded boats.
If the guy ever thinks it's over at the slightest worry, it doesn't work.
Precisely on the psychological aspect, you have known big failures, you are immune now, you can bounce back no matter what?
ALC:
All the problems we are going to face, as long as they do not lead us to abandonment, we will be able to find solutions on board.
The huge disappointment would be to give up because that would be synonymous with major damage.
But when you take the start of a Vendée, you know that everything can stop after three days.
However, we do not think about it every moment.
KE:
If you're always telling yourself “we're going to type something”, you are no longer sailing.
There is no more fun or performance.
You have to remain lucid on many aspects, but the parameters that you cannot manage - knowing if there is something in the water in front - you have to disregard them.
Speaking of going all out, the idea is to go 100% of the boat or to be measured according to future major deadlines while doing a good performance on the Jacques Vabre?
ALC
: Our goal is to arrive in Martinique, whatever the place.
We do not have all the instructions for the boat.
There are conditions that we have not yet met.
Maybe at times when the other competitors, more confident and aware of their abilities, can go a little harder than us, we will have to not let ourselves be too influenced by the competition.
And accept not to take risks.
Sport
Transat Jacques-Vabre: "Hold on tight, it'll bombard"… We flew aboard Thomas Rouillard's foiler
Sport
Vendée Globe 2020: “I'm sinking.
This is not a joke.
MAYDAY »... Escoffier, saved by Le Cam, recounts his rescue
Sport
Interview
Jacques Vabre deckchair
Armel Le Cleac'h
Veil