He refused to give up. Good luck to him. Louis Burton, got back into racing mode Tuesday November 19, after three days spent repairing his seriously damaged Imoca. The skipper of Bureau Vallée, victim of damage during the night from Saturday to Sunday, noticed cracks on board, which threatened “the structural integrity of his boat”. After having seriously considered giving up, the Malouin re-mobilized and wanted “do everything to continuer”. For franceinfo: sport, Louis Burton looks back on these last 72 trying hours.
franceinfo: sport: First of all, how are you?
Louis Burton : I'm fine in the head because you can't imagine how happy I am that I didn't give up. I have been sailing normally since 2 p.m. this afternoon [mardi 19 novembre]in crazy conditions, which we love, with fairly flat seas, wind, flying fish and it's hot. It's the foot. On the other hand, my back and arms hurt. I'm exhausted. And my forearms and legs are itchy from carbon dust, glass thread and glue. This is the inventory of the guy (smile).
The moment you hear this abnormal noise, this “big crack”, on the large gennaker (foresail) placed on the spreader on the deck, do you immediately understand what is happening?
Initially, no. I looked at the rudders, the cockpit, etc., my I didn't think that. Then, after 2-3 minutes, I heard a violent alarm warning of the presence of water in the boat. I actually noticed that there was water aft on the port side and that I was taking on water. At this point I began to see the problems on the hull and deck. The deck was broken and the hull cracked, and the two parts overlapped. From there, the sky is falling on your head.
You thought about giving up. What re-motivated you?
Apart from this famous part, the spacer, which presses very hard in this part of the boat, it is not an area that is extremely stressed in normal times. I had taken away lots of resin, carbon fabric and composite parts. We quickly said that there was something to try and that it was going to be an adventure because the end would not be certain at the end of this repair. We had to try.
“I went sleep because I needed to think clearly. When I woke up, I said to myself, 'If you give up now, without trying, you're going to be so disappointed.'”
Louis Burton, skipper of Bureau Valléeat franceinfo: sport
You have been preparing for this Vendée Globe for four years, with a whole team behind you, your sponsors who support you, the schools who follow the educational project. You can't not try. And then, in the past, I have already had big problems at sea, I I know the immense joy that it represents to get out of a difficult situation and to succeed in getting out of it. When you've already tasted this, you know it's worth the pain because the joy is exponential to the suffering cursor.
Did the immersion with the Raid help you during these complicated 72 hours?
Yes, thoroughly (laughing). Stay active, don't stay still (he repeats it like a motto). I thought about them a lot while filming all this, telling myself that I would love to be able to show them. I hope they will be proud.
The repairs were impressive between interior and exterior sanding, cutting with a grinder, gluing, then installing the fabrics. How long did it take you and Were there any parts more complicated than others?
I will say it took me three days and two nights. That's all I really did, except maybe four times two hours of sleep in the drying phases. As it was a really serious structural repair, everything had to be done extremely well. And therefore, in a context of work which is not ideal, it was that's the hardest part, that the fabric is perfectly glued, that the resin is perfectly mixed, that there is not a drop of water falling on it until it has polymerized.
And then the most difficult part was the one on the hull because I had to work while suspended above the water. Finally, from a technical point of view, the whole application inside was not simple. On the deck, it's quite clear, but inside, you have all the partitions, the floors… Q When you cut out pieces of carbon fabric, you have to make all the roundings. When you come to install the slats, you have to make the notches in all these parts. It's a puzzle.
And indeed, the images of you, hanging from a rope on the hull or working with the grinder in the open sea, are impressive. Can we prepare for that?
I don't know if we can prepare for that. As I have been sailing for a long time, I have accumulated problems. And I have always loved tinkering. I spent a lot of my vacations with my maternal grandfather who was a farmer and who taught me to make do with what I had at hand. I learned to manage by force of circumstances.
The repairs are therefore complete. So you went back into racing mode?
Yes, I've been in racing mode since 2 p.m. this afternoon. I'm in racing mode and under observation at the same time. I'm not 100%. My idea is to start at 90% then go up 5 to 5 steps until I can really push the boat very hard as long as we are in more or less civilized areas in order to fully validate the solidity and durability of this structural repair. before committing to the Deep South.
Before your damage, you were in the leading group with those who chose the western option. Now you are 25th. What are the next steps?
There are a number of boats that are slower than mine, so the idea is to grab places. There are a few boats like mine that aren't very far away, so again, it's a matter of going and patching them up. And then, it's trying to take advantage of the doldrums, where inevitably it will buffer a little ahead, to pick up and try to negotiate the best passage from the doldrums, where we have already seen gaps of 200 -300 miles to be absorbed in a few hours.
