They come from New Zealand, Great Britain or Switzerland. For this 10th edition of the solo, non-stop world tour, 11 nationalities (including France) are represented. In 1989, for the launch of the Vendée Globe, two of them came from abroad (the American Mike Plant and Bertie Reed, originally from South Africa).
Denis Van Weynbergh today has a dream: to be the first Belgian sailor to complete a Vendée Globe aboard a monohull on which he has been sailing since 2018 (D’Ieteren Group). But achieving this ambition required patience and some sacrifices. The 57-year-old skipper responded to franceinfo
franceinfo: You had a bit of an upset history with the Vendée Globe since you had already wanted to be at the start 4 years ago. It hadn’t happened. Perseverance sometimes pays off!
Denis Van Weynbergh : Last time, I didn’t have the funding, I slept on the boat, the old-fashioned way. It’s funny, but hey in winter, it’s less funny. I also didn’t make the sacrifices needed to be able to be present and perhaps I wasn’t surrounded by the right people. I was less present, for example, in Les Sables d’Olonne to prepare the boat. I was no longer in Belgium. There, I told myself that if I wanted to succeed, I had to make the necessary sacrifices. It’s all part of the process and the path to getting to the starting line. And to also arrive at the finish line, we hope!
What implications does this have on your personal life?
I became a professional skipper 5 years ago. On this type of project, you have to be 100% professional. It’s like being a player in the Champions League, you can’t do it half-heartedly. The sacrifices are first and foremost family, since I have children who are in Belgium, I see them less. Sacrifices also in terms of social life: my entire social life is in Belgium. We had to start from scratch, spend a lot of evenings alone, dare to eat at a restaurant alone, go to a bar, drink a beer alone… We had to question ourselves after the failure of 2020 and then start again in another way.
Your journey shows that we cannot prepare for a Vendée Globe by staying in Belgium? Is it impossible?
In Belgium, there are no skills in Belgium at the nautical level. Here, in Brittany, all suppliers and all trades are within reach. In Belgium, it was illusory. It’s true that my economic network is in my country, that’s how we managed to have a 100% Belgian partner. It is also a real pride, a real victory to have a Belgian boat, a Belgian skipper and a Belgian partner in an international race. But navigating here is complicated. There is only one port I can enter with the boat, a place where there is a lot of traffic.
How did you come to dream of the Vendée Globe? Does this race resonate in Belgium?
No, it remains quite confidential. We don’t have a sailing culture like we have in other countries, in France, England or even Spain. It’s also a real educational task for us because when we meet potential partners, they don’t realize what’s happening. When we tell them that there are two million people coming to see the boat, they don’t believe us. We also often have the image in Belgium that sailing is an elite sport whereas we know that in France, it is really for the general public.
I imagine that you applaud when you see that there are more and more foreign skippers, that it breaks up this Franco-French side a little.
It’s essential to have this openness! We play a bit of a navel-gazing sport. We have already had a palace revolution since it was not a Breton who won in 2020, but a Rochelais (Yannick Bestaven, editor’s note). It was already a revolution in the world of sailing. The other real revolution will be when a foreign woman wins the Vendée Globe. It could happen this year (with the British Samantha Davies, editor’s note). This sport is the only one to have the same ranking for men and women. It’s a real sign of openness I think.
Do you also want to be an ambassador for Belgium?
It’s a big mission nonetheless. I do it first for my pleasure at first. It’s certain that if, in 20 years, I have a kid who tells me: I go sailing because I heard an interview with you, we will have won everything.
