Clément Giraud, 16th in the Vendée-Arctique-Les Sables d'Olonne
The skipper of Vers un monde sans Sida, crossed the finish line in Les Sables d’Olonne this Wednesday 15 July at 08h 03’ 27’’ (French time) after 11 days, 16 hours, 33 minutes and 19 seconds of racing.
He covered 3,083.7 miles at an average of 10.99 knots, which equates to 10.01 knots along the theoretical course (2,807.3 miles). Aboard his 2006 Farr design, Clément needed to finish this race to validate his qualification for the Vendée Globe. Mission accomplished!
INITIAL REACTION FROM CLÉMENT GIRAUD
“I feel good, albeit a bit tired. The fatigue was the only thing I didn’t manage very well. I’m very happy though. The course was fabulous! I fought like a lion, I enjoyed myself and the minor issues didn’t compromise my sailing.
I set sail without an objective. On that score, not having a sponsor means I had a little less pressure on my shoulders. Thank you so much to Erik Nigon who, by loaning me his boat for this race, has enabled me to get back on my feet! As a result, here I am, qualified for the Vendée Globe. We’ll have to wait and see what happens from here…
I had a catastrophic start: 20 minutes before the starting gun I looked up and noticed that there was a problem with the mainsail. The guys rushed to dump the sail… As such, I got behind and got off to a bad start. After that, I quickly got into the thick of things and noticed that the others were escaping very, very quickly, so you immediately see who you’ll be racing with. Manuel, Miranda and I battled hard. We have boats of fairly similar speeds, so it was really nice between us."
Teams info
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