Départ offciel de l'ARKEA ULTIM CHALLENGE - Brest, le 07/01/24
At 1:30 p.m. on Sunday, six skippers finally set sail under a dazzling sun and ideal conditions off the coast of Brest. Let’s go for this great leap into the open sea and the unknown, 21,600 miles (34,700 km) across the oceans. But before hoisting the mainsail and heading south, they offered a lot of emotions. In front of a large crowd, the skippers were full of encouragement before setting off to live their dream and try to make everyone feel incredibly dizzy. Let’s take a look back at the most memorable moments from the early morning until this afternoon.
7:20 a.m. Emulation. Anyone who has competed in round-the-world records – Thomas Coville, Charles Caudrelier and several team members – knows this feeling. Waking up at dawn, brutal for the most anxious, a little less so for the most serene. Rare words at breakfast. The hurried step to reach the port, with the cold nibbling away at the face and hands, the quarter moon taunting the early risers. The apprehension of having forgotten something, a detail, a certainty. And then there’s this lump in your stomach that you can’t control… The emotion washing machine has already begun, but everything remains to be done.
8:28 a.m. Holidays. Charles Caudrelier is in the mixed zone. Despite his dark circles, he says he slept well “despite going out of the nightclub at 5 a.m.” The skipper of Edmond de Rothschild talks about the start, the emotion – “I’m trying to shield myself on that side” – the “little heartbreak when it comes to saying goodbye to the children”. It is of them that he thinks above all. “I tell myself that I’ll be back in a month and a half, for the school holidays. For the reservation, we hesitated: we had gone on a surf trip with my son and my daughter wants to come but she doesn’t like surfing… We’re going to have to find a compromise. But it will be for the 2nd week of the school holidays! I have my birthday on February 26th, I hope to be home by then! »
Lots of good vibes before the “start start”
8:39 a.m. The first tears. Until then, Éric Péron (ULTIM ADAGIO) held his ground. Of course, there had been this wake-up call around 5 a.m. this morning, the little pancake shared with his daughter, the interviews – “I put on my communicator’s costume”, the pensive air before going on stage. The words are chosen, the words are assured, the sentences rather short. After the descent on the pontoons, slightly bothered by the light that overlooks a camera, he cracks. “Before leaving, I want to say ‘Thank you all’ and wish you all the best,” he said before boarding.
8:56 a.m. A case of pilou-pilou. Anthony Marchand had announced his schedule for his last night. Several newspapers have reported on it, popularizing at the same time a term that is obviously not known to everyone: the “pilou-pilou”, which refers to a cotton-based fabric. “It will be Pilou-Pilou, a pasta dish, Netflix and at 8 p.m. in bed,” he told the newspaper L’Équipe. Clarifications (crucial) offered this morning in the mixed zone: “I didn’t watch a movie last night, but I had time to hang out in a pilou-pilou and eat a good plate of pasta bolognese with my sweetheart.” Enough to fill up on good vibes before facing the emotional sequence of the start…
9:03 a.m. “Thank you so much boss!” Between two answers, Thomas Coville greets the “boss”, Olivier de Kersauson, with whom he cut his teeth and who will give the start a few hours later. Hervé Berville, Secretary of State for the Sea, approached “Kersau”, taken aback: “Olivier, are you forcing them all to call you boss?” The answer was quick to swallow with a smile on his face: “You can call me that too.” This is nothing new, the round-the-world record holder (125 days, 1989) prefers the truth of sailors rather than worldliness. A little later, he confided to us: “We live in a world of impostures and, there, there is only truth, it’s extraordinary. It corresponds to the state of mind initiated by Éric Tabarly, which I and others followed afterwards… There is nothing more beautiful, stronger, more violent than this race. I’m very happy and very proud to be here.” A little later, Olivier de Kersauson counted down the last ten seconds before the start on VHF.
9:21 a.m. Hugs between skippers. Armel Le Cléac’h has just won the pontoons. He passes in front of Thomas Coville, the two men greet each other. “Protect yourself from your courage,” Thomas told her. Tom Laperche is there too. “You’re a good guy,” Armel said after kissing him. A few seconds later, Coville and Laperche fell into each other’s arms. Thomas is a friend of the Laperche family: Tom got on his boat when he was 8 years old. The sound system hides their words. What remains are looks, a strong image, a mixture of pride, admiration, humility. An image of seafarers.
9:53 a.m. A son’s tears. He has a cap screwed on his head, a fairly large coat and doesn’t take his eyes off Armel. It’s his son, Edgar. It was with him, his daughter and his wife that Armel had dinner yesterday. It is with his family that he crosses the crowd, descends on the pontoons, like Charles and Thomas before him. The skipper of the Maxi Banque Populaire XI evokes “an emotion“. His broad smile seems to hold back tears as he gives a final bow to the crowd. And then there are those warm hugs with her children a little further away on the trampolines of the Ultim. Edgar couldn’t hold back his tears. The little family takes the few steps necessary to get to the cockpit, last moment together, in privacy, before making an appointment in a few weeks.
10:27 a.m. Departure from the pontoons. The Maxi Banque Populaire XI has just cast off. It was the last of the six boats to set sail. We could see, in the eyes of Anthony Marchand, Charles Caudrelier and Tom Laperche, the look focused on watching over everything and finally getting into their race. Thomas Coville struggled to hold back his tears, Armel Le Cléac’h looked at the pontoon for a long time and then the Ultims left the pontoons.
