Cold, solitude, storm in the middle of the ocean: why the Vendée Globe awakens primitive fears in “earthlings”

Prochaine étape pour les leaders du Vendée Globe : la Cap Horn. Alea – Guirec Soudée

BILLET. Les aventuriers des mers ne confient pas seulement leur destin aux caprices du Vendée, ils repoussent les frontières de l’inconnu sur une carte pourtant “googlisée” au centimètre, dernier refuge de l’imaginaire

No one is feeling too good. Sucked into a relentless competition defying the wrath of the heavens, the vanguard of the Vendée Globe has just emerged from a terrible storm in the Indian Ocean, and it is a small miracle that the leader Charlie Dalin and his pursuer Sébastien Simon are still in the race, the boat unscathed and the Homeric mind in the cockpit.

We can temper the feat with electronic and satellite assistance, but we have to try to imagine: ten-metre waves, the deafening din of the wind in the sails, wicked gusts of up to 100 km/h, the freezing cold stuck to our clothes, a “quarter-heurized” sleep, the night that revives existential fears and this continuous stress of competition, even stronger than that of survival. Nightmarish.

Between land and sea, feelings differ. This is how the legend is nourished, whose evocative power is unrivaled: while the “land-spectators” are gripped between fascination and fear, the sailors remain champions like any other, obsessed by the final victory at Les Sables-d’Olonnes. If Dalin and Simon found themselves pursued by a meteorological “monster”, it is because they chose it, deliberately setting a course to the East to increase their lead. Alone in the world, heroic through the mishaps.

A definition of courage

The adventurers of the seas do not only entrust their destiny to the whims of the Vendée, they push back the boundaries of the unknown on a map that is nevertheless “googled” to the centimeter, the last refuge of the imagination, like a call to travel. Ulysses of modern times, they are not at the end of their troubles. Because after Cape Horn as Christmas approaches, we will have to tackle the immensity of the Pacific Ocean, the legacy of Magellan, Hillary or Gagarin, pioneers of exploration, a window open on the romantic in a (sporting) cosmos scientificated and scrutinized to excess.

Except that a sailor, him, does not dream, or at least of touching land first. He suffers, doubts, is afraid. But he clings to the helm, waiting to saber the champagne during moving family reunions. A definition of courage. What madness pushes him to set sail again every four years? The Eternal Return.