Yoann Richomme is second in the Vendée Globe: "It feels like we left two days ago"
by Ed Gorman / IMOCA Globe Series 15 Jan 13:58 UTC
15 January 2025
Yoann Richomme is second in the Vendée Globe © Jean-Louis Carli / Alea
Tough, technically minded, competitive and consistent, the French skipper Yoann Richomme completed his first Vendée Globe this morning, finishing in a hugely impressive second place.
The 41-year-old married father of two, who launched his solo IMOCA campaign only three years ago, thus completes a stunning sequence in the Class that saw him win two transatlantic races in the build-up to the round-the-world marathon.
Arriving off Les Sables d'Olonne on board his Antoine Koch/Finot-Conq foiler Paprec Arkéa, Richomme crossed the line nearly 23 hours behind race winner and his longtime rival and fellow countryman Charlie Dalin.
Richomme's race time was 65 days, 18 hours and 10 minutes after sailing a total distance of 28,326 nautical miles, at an astonishing average speed of 17.95 knots. Like Dalin, he smashed the previous race record, in Richomme's case by 8 days and 9 hours.
Also just like Dalin, with whom he was joined in a match race for more than 30 days, Richomme could hardly believe his voyage around the world was already over. "The emotion of finishing a round-the-world race, I don't know if it was ever truly a dream of mine, but in any case, we did it," he said. "It feels like we left two days ago, at an incredible pace. I sailed as if it were training, like smaller races, and I didn't do anything differently from what I know how to do."
Richomme started back in November among the favourites on board a sistership of the boat being sailed in the race by Thomas Ruyant - and fully lived up to those expectations. He was always in the mix during the tricky early stages heading south in the Atlantic, but then showed his metal when pacing Dalin as they rampaged across the South Atlantic towards the Cape of Good Hope.
Richomme's boat was considered to have the edge over Dalin's Guillaume Verdier design in the big weather systems of the Southern Ocean and, alongside Sébastien Simon on Groupe Dubreuil, currently on course to finish third, he tracked Dalin throughout the marathon to Cape Horn. He led on the way to that famous landmark and then took the initiative in the south Atlantic before Dalin overtook him again off the Brazilian coast, and led from there to the finish.
Richomme has never hidden the fact that he does not love solo ocean racing the way most IMOCA skippers do - viewing it as a technical and engineering challenge as much as a nautical one. And, at the finish, he admitted there were times when he struggled with the boat and the distance. "It wasn't easy every day, let's be honest," he said. "The pace was relentless, especially in the South Atlantic, where we were breaking record after record. The rhythm was awful; life on the boat was awful.
"But from the end of the Indian Ocean onward, it was a dream round-the-world trip," he added. "I hardly had to reef, the boat was always flying, and we were engaging with weather systems so perfectly it would make others despair. It was incredible."
The difference between success and disaster in solo ocean racing can come down to fine margins. The Paprec Arkéa skipper revealed at the finish that his Vendée Globe almost ended just hours after he set sail, when he failed to spot a fishing boat on collision course with him off Cape Finisterre.
"I was changing a sail on deck and it passed just 10 metres to my left," said Richomme. "It comes down to almost nothing. That's the beauty of it - managing to piece all these little things together, so it works."
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