Charlie Dalin (MACIF Santé Prévoyance), the leader who has been a constant in the vanguard of the Vendée Globe fleet, does not give much away about his mindset or his emotions. The sailor prefers to stay in his race, give everything and leave nothing to chance. However, shortly after the start last November, he reminded all the competitors in the Vendée Globe on social networks of a fundamental principle: "To sail the boat properly, to make the right strategic choices, you have to be clear-headed. As soon as we're down on energy it has an impact. And to achieve this, you have to manage yourself and sleep well." Clarisse Crémer (L'Occitane en Provence) illustrates this perfectly in her video posted on Sunday, January 5, or Benjamin Ferré (Monnoyeur - DUO for a JOB) who is very tired and exposes the consequences of the lack of lucidity, on December 6.
When a lack of lucidity can "put a life in danger"
Yves Lambert is a doctor and a member of the AMCAL association, which is made up of doctors who take turns to look after the medical health of the skippers. He reminds us that lucidity is "the ability to see and understand things clearly and accurately, so a normal functioning of the mental faculties, the pursuit of an activity with the same intensity".
The notion of loss of lucidity is different in other sports disciplines where it defines "simple gestures missed at the end of the game". There, in an event of about 70 days, alone, without assistance, without stopovers, without truce, getting into a state where lucidity is compromised can "put a life in danger".
Except that at sea, you have to deal with "lack of sleep, intense and prolonged effort, lack of food or cognitive resources, lack of physical support". When lucidity is lacking, the consequences can be numerous: "it can be a drop in performance, failure of automatisms or even more dramatically breakages, a breakdown, an injury, abandonment or even a fall into the sea".
A quality panel to strengthen lucidity
The sailors are well aware of this and all of them have worked on this aspect, which is an integral part of their preparation. "There are resources, physical or mental, to help you be the master of the ship, to accept being imperfect," continues Yves Lambert. The doctor reminds us that "mental resources are very unequal" among the competitors because of their age on the one hand – from 23 years old for Violette Dorange (Devenir) to 65 years old for Jean Le Cam (Tout commence en Finistère - Armor-lux) – and their experience on the other hand.
A whole range of qualities helps to strengthen lucidity. The doctor lists them: "professionalism, a taste for competition, self-confidence, discipline, concentration". He also evokes "elements that are more or less well integrated" such as ethics, optimism, sacrifice, resilience, resistance to pressure or emotionality. And he adds: "There are many areas for a skipper to understand, some more important than others, but are the less important secondary? »
Charlie Dalin regularly shows this necessary lucidity, especially when he looks back on his previous finish in the Vendée Globe in 2021*. He told us in an interview before setting sail this year: "I was 2 hours and 30 minutes short of winning and so inevitably, I wake up at night to find the minutes I missed in such and such a change of sail, such a manoeuvre, such a choice that I was able to make." Here again, you need a great deal of lucidity, after so many days at sea, to know how to make the best possible tacks and give it your all until the end. And Yves Lambert concludes: "I'm not sure that some great sailors were very lucid when they arrived."
