“I can’t wait to return to Le Havre to celebrate this victory with all the Normans!”

The day after his victory in the 10th Vendée Globe in Les Sables d'Olonnes, Charlie Dalin, a 40-year-old skipper from Le Havre, looks back on his victory and his solo round the world trip. He hopes to soon organize a return to Le Havre to celebrate his victory.

He dreamed of it, he did it! Tuesday January 14, 2025, Charlie Dalin arrived as the big winner of the Vendée Globe in Les Sables d'Olonne, after 64 days, 19 hours, 22 minutes and 49 seconds of solo circumnavigation aboard his Imoca Macif Santé Préoyance, pulverizing the record of Armelle Le Cléa'ch in 2017.

Under a brilliant sun, a few hours after his triumph at the finish line, the Le Havre skipper lifted the trophy of the 10th edition of the Vendée Globe like a hero, acclaimed by thousands of people.

VIDEO REPLAY. Vendée Globe 2024: Relive Charlie Dalin's incredible victory and return to the channel

After being welcomed offshore, at daybreak, by a large procession of boats at the conclusion of a record-breaking race, the Normandy sailed up the famous channel from 2 p.m. to cheers and applause .

The day after his victory, he looks back on his victory and his solo round the world trip:

Yoann Richome came second this morning, it was a friend who made life difficult for you until the last day of the race. Do you owe this victory to this duel with him?

Yoann and I have known each other for 20 years! We were roommates at the time of Le Figaro. This confrontation, this duel that we had around the world forced us to give the best of ourselves, to always adjust the boat, change sails more regularly, to rack our brains even more to find the best trajectories. fast. Maybe the record wouldn't have been broken if he hadn't been there.

You led the race most of the time in the lead, were there moments of doubt during these 64 days at sea?

I poorly manage a zone of weak winds above the equator, going down the Atlantic, I am twelve or thirteen kilometers behind at that time, with always this doubt of knowing if the situation will “go away”. -in front”. There are also difficulties with technical problems, I had a 1.50 meter crack in the hull which I had to repair, I tore the most important sail for the southern seas, at the level of New Zealand. I had to repair it and find a moment of light wind to do it, which is not always easy to find in these places where the wind always blows very strongly.

I also had a hydraulic problem, I found myself with tens of liters at the bottom of the boat on one of the boat's central systems. Luckily we had a little bit of reserves!

You also owe this victory to this boat, we saw you kiss it when you crossed the finish line.

Of course I owe it to this boat! It's a boat that we designed, I participated in this design, we designed it for this Vendée Globe 2024 and it brought me home! It allowed me to travel around the world and sail at an extremely high pace with almost constant high speeds. Obviously, it's very demanding for the sailor, but also for the boat and it held up to the shock!

Every time I had small technical problems, we managed to resolve them, get it back to 100% and I'm happy that it brought me back to Les Sables-d'Olonne in first position! This boat also comes back in very good condition, so that’s great!

You are now part of the legend of skippers, will we soon have the opportunity to see you soon at home in Normandy?

Since yesterday, I have been thinking about organizing this visit to Le Havre to celebrate this victory with all the people of Le Havre and all the Normans. It's not every day that this happens, I can't wait to return to Le Havre with all the Normandy supporters to properly celebrate this Vendée Globe victory!

Comments collected by Angèle De Vecchi.