Skipper Jingkun Xu is the first Chinese to start the Vendée Globe. An achievement for this self-taught disabled navigator. And an important step for the history of ocean racing in his country.
“I worked three times as hard as my French competitors to get here.” Visibly tired, Jingkun Xu tells franceinfo about his obstacle course to take the start, Sunday March 10, of the Vendée Globe. Smallest fleet budget with China Dreama boat almost twenty years old that he was unable to adapt to his handicap, the skipper with the atrophied arm won his place after twenty years of struggle, which broadly reflects the laborious evolution of sailing in China. “For a Chinese sailor, each step is very complicated to overcome. Knowing how to buy a boat, how to register for the race…”
Unlike Brittany, the epicenter of French sailing for decades, in China the sea has long been a forbidden zone. Navigation was banned in the 16th century and access to it was only restored… under Deng Xiaoping, Mao Zedong's successor, in the 1980s. “The sea disappeared from Chinese history for five centuries”summarizes Thierry Barot, team manager of the Chinese challenge for the America's Cup in 2007. Some important ports in the country are still equipped with large chains which prohibit access at night, a vestige of this era.
Under the leadership of the government, China threw itself into the deep end of sailing when Beijing was designated to host the 2008 Olympic Games. Major detection operations were organized throughout the country. Jingkun Xu is spotted for his athletic qualities by the Chinese Paralympic team. He then begins to sailing on YouTube.
“At 14, I didn’t know how to swim and I had never seen the sea.”
Jingkun Xu, skipper chinoisat franceinfo
But the Paralympic sailing team was quickly disbanded, while China continued its efforts in aquatic sports that provide more medals such as windsurfing. “For them, the priority is the Games”summarizes Bruno Dubois, who led the Chinese boat Dongfeng in the Volvo Ocean Race. “They want medals, that’s what keeps the Chinese machine running.”
“I didn’t want to stop sailing”continues the one that everyone nicknames “Jackie” in France. He chose ocean racing rather than crew races, even though, at the time, competitive sailboats were not numerous in China. He unearthed a 24-footer (a little over 7 m), almost a wreck, repaired it for nine months in a landfill, with his only good hand.
A wave of Chinese billionaires who are keen on sailing are beginning to have the means to fulfill their open sea dreams. The navigator Luc Méry thus finds himself propelled into the great adventure after having transported a catamaran to the port of Sanya for the e-commerce magnate Wang Bin. “When I arrived at the huge, brand new marina where there were only a few yachts, I looked like an alien”he remembers. THE Blue Juice by Wang Bin thus becomes the first Chinese sailboat to cross the Suez Canal, then that of Panama.
It was also the time of the first (and last) Chinese challenge to the America's Cup. “The competitors had a budget of 70 to 120 million eurossighs Thierry Barot. We, six million at the start, fifteen at the end with the help of other sponsors who had given us an extension.” A surprising underinvestment given the economic power of the country, a little less when we measure the place of sailing in the Chinese sporting landscape. “In the America's Cup, there was no Chinese skipper and barely one or two sailors in the crew”pointe Jingkun Xu.
The victory of Dongfeng in 2018 in the prestigious Volvo Ocean Race remains to this day the benchmark of Chinese success on the seas. The crew led by Charles Caudrelier includes a few names familiar to those in the know, such as Pascal Bidégorry or Jérémie Beyou, but barely two Chinese sailors. “The goal was to train them so that they could then fly on their own”assures Bruno Dubois.
However, no Chinese skipper has considered doing the Vendée Globe until “Jackie”. We met Guo Chuan at the Boat Show in 2016, after his non-stop solo world tour which had a huge impact in the country. But the one that everyone saw as the “Chinese Tabarly” turned towards the hunt for records on large multihulls, a more bankable in his eyes. His disappearance at sea in 2017 leaves a gaping void in Chinese sailing.
Behind “Jackie”, the number of Chinese sailors candidates for the “Everest of the seas” can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Chen “Horace” Jiabao, one of the crew members of Dongfengdeclared that he “would really like to participate”. Words that remained a dead letter. “In France, we have structures that allow you to move very quickly towards solo sailing, illustrates Antoine Mermod, the boss of the Imoca class of the Vendée Globe. In every other country in the world, it’s the opposite.” There is thus no offshore racing event on the other side of the globe, the round-the-world race project between Brest and Quingdao mentioned in 2006 having failed.
Today, “Jackie” is a pioneer. “Due to my position as president of the Imoca class, I have the opportunity to see the projects matureconfides Antoine Mermod. And quite honestly, at first, I didn't think he would make it.”
“It is often said that being at the start of the Vendée Globe constitutes a victory, this has rarely been as true as for him.”
Antoine Mermod, president of the Vendée Globe Imoca classat franceinfo
At the start of 2021, the skipper had “just enough money to buy the boat” by Armel Le Cléac'h, the Brit Airan old Imoca launched seventeen years earlier. With a ric-rac budget, Jingkun Xu's team has long been reduced to two people: his wife Sofia and him.
In these conditions, there is no question of adapting the controls to your disability: “I don't see the need for it. I'm the one who adapted to the boat. In the time I've been sailing, it's become a habit.” Before qualifying: “It’s a complex boat to navigate, but it’s going to be okay.”
“Obviously, with a larger budget, I could have made lots of changes.”
Jingkun Xu, skipper chinoisat franceinfo
His teammate in the Transat Jacques-Vabre, the experienced British sailor Mike Golding, recounts on the race site one stormy evening when a sail threatened to come loose: “It's amazing how there's no need to talk to each other when you're on the same page accomplishing something. I also completely forgot that he only 'only one arm.'
Not the type of the Jingkun Xu house to ruminate on the lack of means. He already sees the future: a second Vendée Globe in 2028, with time to capitalize on his first participation, to grow his 23 million followers on social networks – more than the 39 other skippers combined.“What we want is for him to make his people dream, but also potential Chinese sponsors”summarizes Alain Leboeuf, the president of the race.
Secondly, Jingkun Xu intends to create a branch of the sailing school he founded in Sanya in Finistère. “What I want is for future Chinese sailors to be able to grow up faster, he assures. As if they were climbing on my shoulders to see further.” On the horizon, who knows, a Chinese success one day in the Vendée Globe. It is not for nothing that his boat was named China Dream.
