Boris Herrmann : “It does not bother me to be spoken about as a favourite. It is correct on paper.”

When I was on the start line I felt ‘Oh I am really ready!’ and there were no major technical surprises. I was very well prepared with a strong team. It was a success but I was a bit timid, a bit shy in the Southern Ocean, then a little knockdown at Cape Horn I had a big storm just before and broke my mainsail, I was quite down and not really where I wanted to be in the fleet. Then when the weather calmed down at South America, it became obvious I was the only boat going up the Atlantic with no major problems. So let’s go! And then every day for a week I gained one place and then I was first at the equator. That was a surprise to see a new race from the Equator to Les Sables d’Olonne, it was a new race. The final race to the finish. And then it was like a 500 mile sprint. It was the most amazing finish with eight boats within 16 hours. It could have been so different. A ten degree windshift could have changed my ETA four or five hours and a few places. 

The finish is very a conscious memory. The evening before the finish, there was 90 miles to go, I was texting with the team and they had sent me pictures of going in the RIB with their lifejackets, with Prince Albert from Monaco, there was Giovanni Soldini, all my family and team had sent me selfies everyone was so excited – I sent them a text ‘ok see you in four hours’ and went for a last little nap and then ‘bang!’. And I thought ‘what do I have to tell these people now?’ Then I made a little video and said ‘sorry I am going to be a bit later’ they needed to know. They turned around and went home and undressed and got more sleep and I sailed in slowly, Luckily I could still finish. And I just set my time limit to be about 10 minutes ahead of Thomas Ruyant as I was just not quite sure how fast I would got before the foil completely broke off. And so I came in at my ‘speed limit’ to take fifth place. 

I think the Vendée Globe is addictive. And it is a paradox. You suffer moments where you think you are so stupid to have decided to go here. But there are other moments where it is a bit like it might be to be on drugs where there such intensity where everything, everything relies on you, you have to play everything, you are master of this fantastic machine, you negotiate the winds around you the currents the strategy and you manage to rebuild yourself over and over again to become these problems every day, literally every day and you have a big problem every week. Every week your whole being is put into question. These are such strong moments, where you feel effective and your day is very impactful and it is an intensity which is so strong. There is an incredible mixture the freedom of being out on the ocean, the competition, the mix of feelings is incredible. 

I wish I was a philosopher to be able to explain this paradox, the notion of solitude. We chose to be there in the first place. For so many years it is the big dream to go there. And you find yourself suffering, well, for me it is strange to put so much energy into something where I find myself super uncomfortable. So I cannot explain why we do this. There is an anxiety of loneliness which probably hits at the end of the first week. It is a difficult transition to going to my little capsule, where I live totally disconnected to people, I have a to be self reliant but this week is untying from the land. The first two days are the adrenalin, you just need to sleep, your muscles hurt and you are fighting through the first front. You survived and then there is a realisation ‘damn that is only three days I still have three months to do. That is a mental mountain which seems impossible.

We are the boat which has sailed the most miles in the preparation time. We got the new boat first. And we took this new boat around the world already, knowingly, we did that to prepare for the Vendée Globe and there is no one who has done that. (to the same extent). I think only Paul Meilhat and us have done the same and Paul has had some problems this year. And so really we are the boat which has done the most preparatory races and miles and that naturally puts us in the position of a favourite. Emotionally to me that does not change anything to me. Emotionally it is good. But I don’t feel under pressure. To me the Vendée Globe is more than a race, and it is maybe not even a race to me I really tend to go out there in terms of a voyage. Because I am conscious of the risk and the Vendée Globe as a race has a high proportion of deception. Something can break in the first week of the race and you are out of the race. You still can do the voyage. The notion of competition motivates me. But I can also inside say inside to myself the competition is a nice pretext for me to do this voyage, this amazing voyage. It does not bother me to be spoken about as a favourite. It is correct on paper. 

Sharing the adventure of the Vendée Globe has always been part of the mission for me. That is how it started for me. Someone shared these images like Loick Peyron, the people at the time, they were filming the birds around the boat, the seas, these are the stories that brought me where I am now.  And so for me it is a natural cycle to share the adventure. This is really something I really want to do. And in the last Vendée Globe, usually in the second half of the day, when I start speaking to my phone and doing a little video and sharing my day that is helps me a lot, I feel less alone, I feel motivated and I feel connected to the world. I consistently communicated more and more and I think it should happen this time. 

I think that in the early season races this year I was able to do some original strategic choices especially the race from New York back to France I did a huge detour to the north and everyone was a bit rolling their eyes saying ‘what is he doing?’ at one moment Charlie, the winner and I was second, were two and a half thousand kilometres separated north to south. It very unlikely we will see these big strategic options in the Vendée Globe. It will keep us very much in check going along the ice limit to the south and we will never have 1000 nautical miles spread. The place where is most critical is passing the corner of Brasil, where we most likely might separate where some might take a route to the south around the Saint Helena high pressure, like last time I tried to through the middle and that can be very decisive for the race. That for me will be the most critical moment in the race. 

Our boat is more gentle for me and it is has a capacity to go through the ocean in a more gentle way there are only two other boats out there which have a similar capacity, Thomas Ruyant’s and Yoann Richomme’s who have also boats which cut the waves a bit. But compared to my previous boat this boat is now more gentle for me, it has a rounder shape. It was the impressions of the last boat in the last Vendée Globe which led us to build this boat. We don’t want to stop in every wave and fight every wave, we need a boat which can go through the sea, which is adapted to the sea state. That is great success of our campaign, when the boat goes at 30 knots I can stand inside the boat with a cup of tea and not being thrown around like some other boats. On the downside in flat sea in the Atlantic we might be a bit slower. It is really a big question how this will pan out on this Vendée Globe.

To me a success on the 2024 Vendeée Globe would be to get to the finish, to share my story, to be in the top ten, to have taken pleasure in doing it and being able to do it again, and to be able to come back with our scientific data we collect along the way. And to have inspired a few people along the way.