From our special correspondent in Les Sables d'Olonne
“Some stupid places, I made a bunch of them in Figaro.
There, I relieved the possible con who could have been in my place.
Like what my generosity has no limit. "
In his inimitable style and in front of a hilarious audience, not really in a hurry to go to sleep despite the late hour, Jean Le Cam was playing mischievously against bad luck with a good heart by evoking his chocolate medal in the Vendée Globe.
It certainly does not have the bitter taste of the previous ones for "King John", who would well deserve that one more step be ordered from the carpenter responsible for delivering the podium for the awards ceremony scheduled for May 22 at Les Sables d ' Olonne.
Because the Finistérien unrolled a score without false note, sublimated by powerful allegros, during the 81 days, 5 hours, 59 minutes and 55 seconds of his world tour.
His 16:15 bonus - for having heroically saved Kevin Escoffier - cut off, Le Cam finished just 10 hours behind the winner Yannick Bestaven, and at 3:20 a.m. from the bronze snatched by Louis Burton.
An authentic feat for the 61-year-old sailor, accomplished at the helm of a worn-out boat (2007 vintage, over 100,000 miles on the clock) but with a nice pedigree (1st in the Vendée Globe 2008) and which has withstood very well against foilers that Le Cam likes to make fun of.
"An old asshole, a handicapped man and a wanker"
Jean Le Cam
These jewels of technology promised to fly over the race - literally and figuratively - but which never really took off, for lack of favorable weather conditions.
“I remind you that Hugo Boss (Alex Thomson's new boat, forced to abandon) was leaving for a Vendée Globe in 69 days.
Well that's what… With F1 cars, they move at 60 km / h, I'm going just as fast with my 4L ”, laughs Le Cam, whose snub, as funny as it is, should not let believe that the future does not he does not belong to the so-called “flying” boats, already winners in 2017 with Armel Le Cléac'h and therefore this year with Yannick Bestaven.
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His battle, the irreducible Breton leads him first against cost inflation.
“Today, this race is becoming financially inaccessible,” he regrets.
There are boats at 6-7 million euros.
I dare to hope that this edition will allow the organizers to take another look at the future.
It is important - essential - that the Vendée Globe be accessible to SMEs and young people ”.
Profiles à la Damien Seguin and Benjamin Dutreux, brilliant rookies on classic drift frames, like his.
The first disabled sailor on the starting line, Seguin finished 7th in a race whose good preparation owes a lot to Le Cam, the mentor of the quadruple born without a left hand.
Arrived Friday in 9th position, Dutreux also puts stars in the eyes of Le Cam, quite proud of the trio made up of "an old jerk, a handicapped man and a wanker".
An umpteenth projection of which he has the secret as if to exorcise a fear.
The one who escorted her for a month and a half on the oceans, after discovering that the hull of her boat was delaminating at the front.
To the point of imagining a fate à la Escoffier, like a Saint-Bernard trapped by an avalanche.
“I have known the unbearable.
I'm here but it's a miracle, he believes.
With each wave, you wonder if it will hold.
And in this situation, if it breaks, you sink. "
A broken rib
The three-time winner of the Solitaire du Figaro is trying to make repairs - “it held, then it broke” - and thinks about abandoning it several times, especially on the approach to Cape Horn.
But Hubert, so baptized in tribute to his missing friend Hubert Desjoyeaux, holds the shock.
Morale returns as the layers of clothing become thinner: "I kept going up north and telling myself 'quit being in a life raft, as long as the water is hot."
All this while limiting the damage to the “p… classifications” thanks to trajectories stretched like an arc, the fruit of its extraordinary feeling.
Since he took little pleasure there, "stressed from morning to night" with a broken rib, not sure whether he is going back for a 6th dance, at 65 bars, in 2024. Might as well stop on a masterpiece.
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