CThis time, victory will not escape him. After a last minute defeat in 2020, Charlie Dalin won the 2024 Vendée Globe on Tuesday January 14, completed in 65 days. He thus shatters the previous record held by Armel Le Cléac’h (74 days in 2016).
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The 40-year-old from Le Havre had put all the chances on his side to complete the “Everest of sailing” by leading a good part of the race. But the naval architect knew that he would have to remain strong until the end: two years ago, on the Route du rhum, he was overtaken at the finish by Charles Caudrelier.
Perfectly comfortable in his Imoca (Macif santé prévoyance) and well helped by the weather, Charlie Dalin fought a fierce battle with Yoann Richomme until the end of the race. The skipper of Paprec-Arkéa took the lead in the race at the end of December, before being overtaken by Charlie Dalin. On arrival, only 140 nautical miles separate the first two.
Charlie Dalin’s risk-taking pays off
“I’m very happy that it’s him who wins,” reacts skipper Maxime Sorel (V and B – Monbana – Mayenne), forced to retire after breaking his ankle. He was the one who took the most risks by staying ahead of depressions, even those that were a little complex, when Yohann sometimes pulled back. »
Because it was at the Kerguelen Islands, in the tumultuous waves of the Indian Ocean, that the leaders made the difference by sailing further south than their competitors: “Charlie chose to stay south on the enormous depression , where the others favored safety in the north and therefore traveled much further. It was daring, even if it was revised in training. There should not have been a problem with the keel or rudder, and it went well for them,” summarizes Hubert Lemonnier, the race director.
“Normally, in the Atlantic, we go from east to west, and the depressions move towards us, so this is the area where the wind and the sea change enormously,” explains Maxime Sorel. By getting ahead of the depressions, Charlie Dalin and Sébastien Simon (Dubreuil group) therefore took advantage of optimal conditions, even if the second then suffered from a damaged foil: “Behind the low pressure front, the sea has already been blown and remains choppy, whereas if we stay ahead, we benefit from a flat sea with wind which we take at an optimum angle. »
These 18 meter ships, equipped with foils (the appendages placed on the sides of the hull to make the ship fly at a certain speed), still needed to be familiarized with. On this point, Charlie Dalin was a step ahead, having already completed a Vendée Globe on the Apivia Imoca.
He was therefore able to draw on his experience to work with the Mer concept team, the team of François Gabart, himself winner of the Vendée Globe in 2012. “He had very precise feedback. It is a lighter boat, with a narrower hull than the previous Imoca, in order to have better passage at sea,” explains Véronique Soulé, one of the architects who worked on the project. The living space has also been moved from the front to the rear of the central cockpit, so as to protect the skipper as much as possible from the impact of the waves.
Thanks to the foils, a speed “multiplied by 4”
However, there was no discussion on the option of foils. Since the 2016 Vendée Globe, where they made their appearance, their design and solidity have continued to improve. “In forty years, competitive sailing boats have quadrupled their speed. This is the only area where there has been such progress. No Formula 1, no plane goes four times faster today than 40 years ago,” asserts Loïck Peyron, second in the first edition of the Vendée Globe and president of strategic consulting at CDK Group.
“In the last edition, the boats did not have enough wind volume and took on water because the hulls were too low. This time, the foils have been sized consistently. We have reached a certain level of maturity,” adds Guillaume Combescure, technical director of Macif.
Jean Le Cam still without foils
Despite a few old sea dogs, like Jean Le Cam who continues to favor straight daggerboards, the majority of Vendée Globe skippers (25 out of 40) have converted to foiling. Better still, of the current top 20 competitors, 18 are equipped with these appendages: “Last time, Jean Le Cam had a great Vendée without the foils, but the speed gain with them is becoming prohibitive. There is still a 3 to 5 knot difference in downwind sailing,” notes Luc Talbournet, president of Avel Robotics, whose company produced the carbon appendages for half of the Imocas in the Vendée Globe.
Still, we had to learn to sail on these new flying boats: “It changes a lot of things in the approach,” says Maxime Sorel. When the boat rises above the water, it accelerates very hard, but when the sea is imperfect, the boat jumps and falls again. It’s a bit like having eight tons coming down two floors at once. »
François Gabart, who experienced the era of Imocas without foils, can only confirm: “Boat management is very different, before we loaded the boats more to have stability and power. While now we can afford to have slightly lighter boats, they are not the same keel and sail settings. »
“The future of foiling is passenger transport”
Long contested for their lack of solidity, foils have established themselves in regattas, as evidenced by the America’s Cup racing cars on which they became popular in 2013. If foils have made Imoca boats faster (up to 30 knots approximately), they also increased the budgets: up to 500,000 euros per pair of appendages for 6 to 12 months of construction. A cost to take into account for teams who must integrate the risk of breakage. Second in the Vendée Globe for a long time, Sébastien Simon paid the price in December.
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But it’s not just about racing. Today, the shipyards of Brittany Sailing Valley consider the Vendée Globe as a laboratory of innovations for yachting or merchant shipping, because reducing drag means reducing fuel consumption: “The future of foiling , it’s passenger transport, it will come back using the technologies that we are developing on our sailing boats,” assures Loïck Peyron.
The architect Véronique Soulé is also working on a project for a 100-ton ship equipped with foils for Norway. While waiting for this revolution to come to fruition, the foil has not finished making the world of ocean racing dream. “My dream would be to take a ride with Charlie Dalin on his foiling boat,” Jean Le Cam says.
