Among his goals and aspirations pre-start Roura simply wanted to race in the Big South again and to be able to push his IMOCA, the former boat of Alex Thomson on which it is hard to do anything else. It was certainly big step up in performance potential to his two previous races, both completed on modest budgets with older, non foiling daggerboard boats.
In 2016 Roura set off at just 23 years old – reminding us of a certain Violette Dorange – and four years later in 2020 he was still the youngest of the edition.
Now at 31 years old with so much experience under his belt Roura was able to manage his race and his boat, setting the cursor between the innate needs of hard bitten competitor and the prudence and reasonableness of a businessman- entrepreneur.
Unfortunately his race started modestly, as it did for many others. He saw the head of the fleet escape quickly whilst he was stuck in a calm off Cape Verde. But Roura pushed hard all the way. He crossed the equator in 33rd position and then drove hard in the South Atlantic, then in the Indian and Pacific evolving into a quartet he formed with Jean Le Cam and Italian Giancarlo Pedote and Isabelle Joschke.
He impressed coming into Cape Horn where he chose not to slow down despite typically stormy conditions. It was a courageous choice but it did not really pay off. A few days later in anticyclone off the coast of Brazil would all his hard earned gains evaporated like snow off a dyke.
The end of the Atlantic was thus a series of elastic gains and losses, one blow against, one blow in favor of the Swiss sailor.
But the last depression north of the Azores allowed the Hublot skipper to finally have a great match up, a tough close battle with Seguin, so finishing his race with the intensity he had set off looking to find. And so he crossed the finish. bearded, happy, and proud to have succeeded on the world’s toughest solo race for a third time.
