There nothing that can be done. There’s no way to get back out into the action. Priorities, priorities: everything has to be sorted out. Clear the deck of the boat, save what can be rescued, and above all react quickly. The mast, which knocks against the hull can generate major damage… To find yourself in the action enables you to avoid mulling things over too much: understanding why the mast has fallen, attempt to assess if there was an error committed, or whether it was simply down to bad luck. It is also a question of, via a link to the shore crew, of putting plans in place to bring the boat safely into port with the minimum delay. A dismasting is simply about a race which ends, it’s the schedule that will be behind, it’s the fear of the first potential sandstorm in the trust established between the partner and the racer.

It also concerns all the questions which surface for the future: will it be necessary to look at the estimates and ratios between the resistance and lightness of the spar, will it be necessary to modify the checking procedures for the material… The schedule will also have to be reorganised with a view to being ready for the next crucial exchanges. And the pressure mounts: there is still a transatlantic required in order to qualify for the Vendée Globe. In a way, it’s like using up a joker!

For the shore crew, though the music is seldom different, the partition is very specific. All the team members who were on standby are suddenly on the warpath. They suddenly have to be able to offer up viable technical solutions to the sailor who is alone at sea, so as he can make port under the best possible conditions. They mobilise the networks: “it would seem that their may be a former offshore racers is in the Cape Verde islands with his boat. Is it possible to organise and operation with him perhaps.” The teams from the other stables offer their services: technical assistance, a loan of material,…. The telephone continues to ring between the architects, the mast builders, the experts brought together for the occasion. We dissect, analyse, prepare for the future, without making any rash decisions. This period of intensity, even if it weighs heavy on the body, will bear fruit. It reveals any possible weaknesses with the team, but also shows its strength and enables the team to anticipate the next step. It enables the right questions to be asked which will enable the project to make headway serenely.

And then by the law of averages, you can tell yourself that what damage occurs today will not occur again tomorrow. A lucid optimism is more urgent than every before.

Translation KJ