Author of a very good start to the Vendée Globe, Sebastien Simon almost didn't take part in this incredible human and technological adventure. Seriously injured on the Return to Base, the post-Jacques Vabre 2023 qualifying race, his preparation for the next solo world tour is then seriously compromised. A look back at the story of a sailor who came back from far away…
Invited last June to participate in the Transat CIC parade aboard Dubreuil Groupthe IMOCA of Sébastien Simonwe took the opportunity to find out a little more about his project Vendée Globe 2024a major objective in the career of this former winner of the Solitaire du Figaro.
The opportunity also to tour this IMOCA (the former 11h Hour Racing Team of the American Charlie Enright, winner of The Ocean Race) a few months before the big departure from Les Sables d'Olonne and to return to this sequence of accidents occurring during the Return to Base in November 2023.
For his first solo transatlantic since the purchase of this IMOCA in 2023 and while he was sailing in 4th position in tough conditions, a buffet stop threw him violently inside the boat.
Sébastien loses consciousness
Result: a major head injury accompanied by a concussion which will lead to a loss of consciousness, like what happened to Charlie Dalin a few months earlier on The Ocean Race.
For a few hours, Sébastien Simon lies unconscious in his bunk, then wakes up with no clear memory of what has just happened. He sews his own head back together with the stapler found in the on-board medicine box. Then the race doctor decided to divert Groupe Dubreuil to the island of Flores, in the Azores.
When he started his engine to charge the batteries, he realized that it was no longer responding. Then it's the turn of the hydrogenerator to tear itself from its support… Deprived of its batteries, Sébastien Simon must finish his navigation to the Azores blind, without GPS, without communication (with the exception of his Iridium phone emergency) nor instruments, nor the means to produce fresh water.
After repairing his starter at anchor, the skipper of Groupe Dubreuil returns to sea, determined to cross the finish line in Lorient before it closes.
But 5 miles from the finish, during the last jibe, the mast collapsed on the bridge. Once again, the Sablais does not ask for assistance, secures his boat while the mast hits the hull then creates a makeshift rig and, exhausted, finally finishes this decidedly cursed race…
A few days later following a medical examination, he learned that his head impact had in fact caused a cervical fracture which could have had serious consequences. Arrested for three months, he resumed competition in the Transat CIC where he placed 10th then followed up with a promising 4th place during the New York-Vendée.
This long winter break was, in fact, used by the technical team to improve the IMOCA and above all to prevent its skipper from having to relive a similar experience in the Vendée Globe.
Unsurprisingly, ergonomics and sailor safety were at the heart of the “job list”. We now find custom-molded seats mounted on shock absorbers in the cockpit and at the chart table, the idea being to limit the violence of vertical shocks and allow the body to relax. A real gimbal-mounted sleeping bunk was also installed inside the living cell covered with a beanbag-style mattress and a bar at the end to support the feet in the event of sudden deceleration.
Finally, Dyneema fishing nets now divide the living cell to reduce the “flying distance” during buffet stops. These sailors are still a little crazy!
The Skipper chip
Sébastien Simon, the excellence of Figaro in Imoca
This composite engineer very quickly turned to the 470 aboard which he finished 3rd in the World Championship in 2013. The same year, he won the Challenge Espoir Bretagne-CMB, which allowed him to enter the the Figaro circuit. In five seasons, he established himself as one of the best in this very competitive class before winning the Solitaire in 2018.
With the support of his partners, Arkéa and Paprec, Sébastien Simon decides to participate in the 2020 Vendée Globe and has a new boat designed by Juan Kouyoumdjian built. But while he was sailing in 4th position, he was forced to abandon the race after hitting a UFO off the Cape of Good Hope.
After a stint on The Ocean Race aboard Guyot Environnement, he bought, with the help of his new partner Groupe Dubreuil, 11h Hour racing Team, the winner of the event.
POINTS FORTS
- Mastery of solitaire by the skipper
- IMOCA winner of The Ocean Race
WEAK POINTS
- Painful Memories of Return to Base
- Physically demanding IMOCA
DUBREUIL GROUP – Guillaume Verdier – 2021
This American IMOCA launched in the summer of 2021 is the first boat truly designed to compete in The Ocean Race in 2023.
One of Guillaume Verdier's objectives was to design a versatile and homogeneous boat that could race with a crew, double-handed and solo, ” without holes in the fleeces », and with an aerodynamic and closed deckhouse.
Very efficient and reliable on the crewed world tour – he won the competition – he then passed into the hands of Sébastien Simon who debuted him in the Transat Jacques Vabre.
After his accident on the return deckchair, Sablais made real improvements in terms of ergonomics.
