Benoît Alt: “Charlie Dalin is a great sailor”

He smashed the reference time for the Vendée Globe. Frenchman Charlie Dalin won the 10th edition of the legendary round-the-world race on Tuesday morning, solo, non-stop and without assistance, nine days in advance. His time? The Norman navigator took exactly 64 days, 19 hours and 22 minutes to leave Les Sables d’Olonne and return there, circumnavigating the world by sea.

The Fribourgeois Benoit Alt is currently on the Atlantic Coast to practice offshore sailing. He carefully followed the race on the internet, with the help of cartography. He found it interesting to analyze everyone’s strategic choices. Regarding Charlie Dalin’s career: “It’s a great feat that he offered us, he broke many records. We can still see that he is a great sailor, who knows how to move his boat very quickly” .

Benoît Alt keeps a close eye on the course of the Swiss sailors, and in particular on Justine Mettraux who is in 8th place, but who is fighting to grab a place on this final straight.

The Friborg sailor admits that participating in the Vendée Globe makes him dream, even if it represents a large budget and years of experience.

Foil boats have proven themselves

According to Benoît Alt’s analysis, the race rankings support the technology of foils, which are a kind of wing that is added to boats to increase their lift and speed on the water. The first 14 boats in the race are equipped with it: “This demonstrates that this new technology works independently of sailing conditions. Because during the round-the-world trip, it is not always the same sails that you need to have, this is not the case. It’s not always the same weather conditions. Drift boats lag further behind.

Benoît Alt himself equipped his boat (dating from 2008), which is 6 meters long and 3 meters wide, with foils to increase its performance. He will start the Mini-Transat on September 21 for the second time. It is a race which starts from Les Sables d’Olonne, and which crosses the Atlantic alone, without assistance and without communication.