This January 7, 2025, 11:54 p.m., will undoubtedly remain one of the finest moments in the career of Norman skipper Louis Duc. After almost two months of racing in the Vendée Globe and a first journey in the South Seas, The Carteréta crossed Cape Horn, at the southern tip of Chile, for the very first time. This crossing point between the Pacific and the Atlantic is a legendary stage: “I am the happiestit’s great to have gotten this far. Especially since I’m alone, so I’m not hazed”confides the Manchois.
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A third of the way remains for the Norman skipper. A journey up the Atlantic to sail against the winds, to circumvent anticyclones, ridges, windless zones. The road to Les Sables d’Olonne still promises to be long. “We’re going to take off layers and get warm again! It’s always the same: when you come back from a very cold place, you’re happy when you warm up. Then, at one point, it will be too hot. We don’t ‘is never happy’laughs Louis Duc.
Message to her… hairdresser
During his solo journey, Louis Duc had company. Competitors, with whom he almost raced at certain times in the southern seas. And other travel accomplices, more “indolents”as the poet Charles Baudelaire would say. “Albatrosses, these “vast sea birds”, symbols of the southern hemisphere. “They are there all the time, watching you, or waiting to eat you, we don’t really know (laughs). They are majestic, impressive animals. You don’t see a beat of wings for miles. You see them playing with the waves, the accelerations”*, specifies Carteretais. Louis even had a visit from a whale, “but by the time we went down to get the phone, she had already disappeared.”
After two months of racing, we are moving more and more towards a “Koh Lanta” look for the skipper. Hair and beard have grown well. It must be said that for Carteret, taking care of yourself is not always easy in a fairly small space. “It’s not easy, but I manage to take small showers with hot water from my jet boil. I manage to take a shower with fifty centimeters of water. The beard, if it bothers me, I cut it; otherwise, I keep it until arrival. And for my hair, normally, I go to the hairdresser twice a year, so normally, I’m relaxed for the Vendée Globe. Especially since I cut them before leaving.” Besides, Louis has a little message for his hairdresser, Clémence de Cherbourg: “you need to reserve a little slot for me when I arrive”. An arrival which is planned for Louis Duc around the “first week of February” in Les Sables d’Olonne.
Her hairdresser, Clémence, replied to him by sharing the video ofhere Cotentin : “Going round Cape Horn and thinking of me is classy! Thank you and congratulations on your journey, I’m preparing the equipment for the beard and VIP service for your hair. Good luck !”
