Clarisse Crémer in the Vendée Globe - Week 8: 35 years, Cape Horn and the New Year
by L'Occitane Sailing Team 2 Jan 16:36 GMT
2 January 2025
Sunshine, smooth seas, worries solved, and the whole world lights up! After a 'dark week', the end of the year and the start of the new one finally seem to be spoiling Clarisse, who has found her smile again, along with her computer tools.
Sun, wind, dolphins and albatrosses to boot, as well as rounding Cape Horn. It was as if the Pacific Ocean wanted to make amends...
After a Christmas when 'my heart wasn't really in it' and a gloomy birthday, admitting that it was 'the day when I feel most in a bad mood', 'grumpy Clacla' ended her year 2024 on much better notes! She who regretted not being able to hug her daughter or enjoy her family, but consoled herself with 'the ocean, the albatrosses, and all the melancholy in the world to feel the love of people who aren't there' was more than served! On Wednesday 31st December, the skipper of L'Occitane en Provence was savouring the return of more pleasant sea and wind conditions, more conducive to rest, enabling her to get back on track after a testing crossing of the Pacific Ocean. Just a few miles from Cape Horn, she declared that she was 'in good spirits', despite slower speeds, competitors on the lookout in her transom and a job list that was big enough to keep her busy on this long day without wind.
On Thursday 1st January, to kick off the New Year, she passed the third and final cape in her journey, at 15:19:07 (FR) after 52 days 02 hours 17 minutes and 07 seconds at sea. Now a double cape-horness, and very proud of it, the 'old sea she-dog' she is on the way to becoming, Clarisse nevertheless saw her rival Benjamin Dutreux getting closer and closer, until exchanging a few reverse shots and having his 11th place snatched away from him. But once again, her mental strength remained the strongest, and she was helped by a real gift from Mother Nature, when she also saw a horde of dolphins arrive, accompanied by a swarm of albatrosses, against a backdrop of blue skies chasing away the dreariness. It was a breathtaking sight, with the giants of the sky and the black and white porpoises, typical of the cold waters of the sub-Antarctic, constantly stealing the limelight. 'The most beautiful day of my life', she enthused, or at least of the year so far.
Imagination to compensate
Well escorted for her return to the Atlantic, Clarisse could also rejoice at the return of the wind after 48 hours in slow motion. This was due to a zone of calm, which at least had the merit of giving her the time to enjoy herself, as rounding Cape Horn solo remains a feat within the reach of so few mortals. And while this year the yachtswoman will once again be unable to admire the mythical rock, lost in thick fog some forty miles to her north, the imagination can compensate and contemplation can be invented. 'You can't see Cape Horn, but you can imagine it! I'm making do with what I've got, and it's fair to say that to start with 2025 isn't bad at all. It's soft, it's slow, we're getting caught up behind, it doesn't look like it's going to be very fast either on the road ahead, but it feels really good! I feel like I've just come out of a month's hibernation'.
With a smile on her face and her cheeks warmed by the sun, Clarisse Crémer can indeed savour the moment, after having been through so much in the infamous conditions, where the cold, hail and snow all played their part in her ordeal, in addition to the waves that were breaking daily on the deck of her yellow and blue IMOCA. With a rested face, Clarisse Crémer can also take satisfaction in the fact that she can see things more clearly now that she is on her way back to Les Sables d'Olonne, with her onboard computer repaired and her routing software back in place. There's no longer any need to rely on secondary navigation software to guide her now that she and her team have managed to repair the primary onboard computer after many long hours of painstaking work in stormy seas: 'I've never been so happy to see a Windows logo in my life; it brought tears to my eyes!'
Back to tactics
With the 'survival' atmosphere of the Pacific behind her, the skipper of L'Occitane en Provence can now get back into strategy mode. Once again armed for a final sprint which promises to be as full of uncertainties as it is of hellish racing, in contact with her main rivals, she will be able to express the full extent of her talent. To defy the elements one last time, across a final ocean which should also have its share of surprises, between well-established anticyclonic bubbles, poorly established tradewinds, the Doldrums to renegotiate and the final month to absorb...