It was in a bistro in Rio de Janeiro in January 1983 that the idea was born. I remember it like it was yesterday. I went there at the request of Philippe Jeantot’s sponsor. And here I am in the middle of filming on the skipper who is winning the race around the world, the « Boc Challenge ». I chose, as my first image, the Maracana stadium. Jeantot is sitting cross-legged there and I have written Alain Colas’s words in the subtitle: “The sea, the largest stadium in the world. »
The film will be called The Grand Sillon. I then proposed that it be screened in preview in Les Sables-d’Olonne in the summer of 1983, during the return of the big winner, celebrated in the channel by the Sables crowd who discovered him. So it was in Brazil, on a café table, that he sketched out his idea in front of me.
From Rio de Janeiro to the Vendée coasts
Time passes. Five years later, having barely been elected president of the department in September 1988, I followed up on the project: it would be a solo race – but without a stop. The Everest of the seas. With a provisional name, the Globe Challenge. But, noting the lack of sponsors, Jeantot calls on me for help to save the project. I accept, but I ask in return that “Vendée” or adventure. It will therefore be the “Vendée Globe”.
From the Olonnes channel, the dream unfolded
Thus the very first fleet set off, on Sunday November 26, 1989. From the Olonnes channel, the dream unfolded, it took to the open sea and carried its aura to the ends of the world. The dream has become global. The editions followed one another every four years. We can say that the Everest of the seas, year after year, continues to keep all its promises. With bumps but also hollows. In fact, I intervened twice as a rescuer in this improbable adventure.
Not only for the race to see the light of day in 1989 but also by having it purchased by the department, in 2005, before the Commercial Court of La Roche-sur-Yon. Indeed, in 2003, Jeantot was convicted of tax fraud, then in 2007, he was again sentenced to three years in prison, then stripped of his rank of knight of the Legion of Honor. The race is for sale. We win the auction. Thanks to the department and Vendée companies, the Vendée Globe will remain in France.
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One of the last adventures of the modern world
It is one of the last adventures of the modern world. The Vendée Globe skippers do not belong to our world of state hygiene. They live in torpor and rising suns, they revive the tradition of these sailors who fought at sea, in the name of honor and the anchor of mercy.
Among the flying fish, the sweatiness of the Doldrums, the Roaring Forties, they nevertheless practice mutual aid, and practice the essential ethical asymmetry when one feels ready to stake one’s life on the whim of the elements for save the other’s life.
At sea, everything is distance
At sea, everything is distance, we are so far from the competitor! And yet these fierce competitors keep in their hearts something to cherish the idea that the distant remains a neighbor. And that elegance requires, on the furrow of foam, to divert for others in the event of shipwreck.
Rough men, watchman of civilization
These rough men, with harsh tempers and who practice excess without excess, are saving what remains of civilization to us. This extreme race sheds a harsh light on the fact of reducing the man of our time to bare life and thus elevating survival to the rank of supreme value.
Today, children’s dreams are locked up in Webistan. At least they can, from the virtual society, follow the Vendée Globe, like a little trickle of foam, a little trickle of life, a little trickle of freedom on the always starting sea.
So that, everywhere, the myth of the erect Consciousness floats
The Vendée Globe is a source of pride for me. I dreamed of giving the Double Heart of Vendée its racing letters, of making it flap in the wind in distant seas so that one day, people would say to themselves: “Vendée is about staying and leaving. The celebration of high heritage and the high seas.” So that, everywhere, the myth of the Consciousness floats erect, on the quiet roof where the doves sleep.
