1 month after the finish, Ollie shares his debrief on the Vendée Globe race:
Ollie, can you summarise the Vendée Globe route?
"The Vendée Globe is an epic route to sail. Right after the start in Les Sables d’Olonne, on the Atlantic Coast of France, you then have to navigate past Finisterre, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. Once you leave the European continent behind you, you start to sail south west, trying to find the best crossing point of the equator and the doldrums to get into the easterly trades in the South Atlantic.
Once you reach the South American coast near Brazil, it kind of slingshots you around, down to Cape Town and into the Southern Ocean.
It just becomes one big, quite the stressful section of the race, because there's one depression after the other. Hardly any rest. Big waves. And then, passing New Zealand, you enter the Pacific and you see light at the end of the tunnel, approaching Cape Horn – and the remaining miles are going down quickly.
And then you round Cape Horn, the most epic of all the capes in the world. You pass it, you turn left, go back into the Atlantic. It's very challenging, especially the South Atlantic. A lot wind holes. Very interesting weather situations. Tricky to navigate. But then you approach the doldrums again across the equator, and normally, mentally, you're almost home.
But the North Atlantic in January or February when you approach Europe again the finish line can be very tricky and, very risky. The boat is tired, the sailor is tired. So for the last bit, you really have to stay focused, switched on and sail a clean final 1,000 miles into the finish.
How was the start experience for you?
"Well, the start day of the Vendée Globe is probably the most emotional day, the most special day that I ever had in my life. French people love the Vendée Globe and almost half a million French people descended down into Les Sables D’Olonne to watch the start.
There is this channel kind of connecting the harbour to the open ocean. This channel is lined with hundreds of thousands of people. The noise, the emotions. It's really hard to put in words what you feel when you stand on the deck of your boat, slowly leaving the channel. Then stepping up on deck, in the open ocean, the team leaving the boat and you are on your own, starting to race.
It's a very, very special.
How did the rest of the race feel?
"That is a very good question because while you're sailing, you cannot think about the entirety of the race. It's such a long time. You have to kind of take it step by step.
What I noticed was that the first one or two weeks are quite hard until you find the rhythm.
Then it gets quite easy until you have some kind of midway blues. When you have already spent a long time at sea and it sinks in that you have done barely half the race, so you have a rough couple of days, a rough section. But then once you can start to tick off the miles again and the number gets smaller and smaller, less miles ahead of you, you find lots of motivation again.
At the end of the race it becomes quite hard again. The last ten days, you really start to think about the finish a lot, of being back on land.
How was the finish?
"It was a very unique race around the globe in terms of weather; at the start, we had zero wind and I finished in zero wind. It's a bit like being back on the lake of Zurich in Switzerland. It was nerve wracking!
I was two miles away from the finish line, with already about 30 spectator boats around me, everyone staring at me, and there was just no wind to progress. So it was nail biting. At the end, there was just this little puff of wind. I managed to peal to my gennaker to catch this bit of wind and get over the finish line.
The weather was exceptional. I crossed the finish line at sunset and we had beautiful moments of light. And then as we entered the channel, it got dark and the atmosphere was captivating.
Looking back, What were the hardest moments for you?
"I think I had two key moments. Funnily enough, they were very close to each other. The hardest moment for me was that wind hole in South Pacific, where I just barely made any progress for five days. There was no way out. I was exactly halfway around the world. I did half the distance, had to do the other distance. And if you normally do 400 miles a day and then suddenly you do 25 miles a day for multiple days. It's a hard place to be in.
And, the most stressful moment for me during the Vendée Globe was just a couple of days afterwards, when I had a near-miss with an iceberg, basically at Port Nemo the place furthest away from land.
It was a very intense moment. And I think in 20 years’ time, when I look back, apart from the start and finish date, this will be the most intense memory. Because it's beautiful to see an iceberg up close. But as a sailor, you're always so happy when you can leave it behind you!
WOULD YOU DO IT AGAIn?
"Absolutely! I definitely feel like I have another Vendée Globe in me, and the team and I are already working towards making that happen. #HeerWeGo
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