The last winner of the Vendée Globe has put in the means to repeat the feat. In 2020, Yannick Bestaven, a skipper based in La Rochelle (Charente-Maritime), won the most prestigious of competitions, this solo world tour, aboard his “Maître Coq IV”. Now it’s time for “Maître Coq V”, a brand new, more efficient boat, with which he will compete in the next Vendée Globe, in 2024. In the meantime, we will have to tame the beast… On the occasion of the launch of his boat, Yannick Bestaven was the guest of France Bleu La Rochelle this Monday, August 29th.
You are not in La Rochelle but in Port-la-Forêt, in Finistère. This is where your brand new boat, the “Maître Coq 5”, is launched. It took a little longer than expected, there is impatience, right?
Yes, of course. Of course, these are very technical and complicated constructions. We would have liked to launch it earlier, but we are happy because the boat is well finished, well prepared. Now, we are going to test it in navigation. We still have a few days of DIY to do on it, once it’s in the water, and then we’ll go to sea with it.
Could you describe it to us? Because, apart from your team and you, no one has ever seen this new boat…
It will be a bit in the colors of “Maître coq IV”, that is to say black, red and a little green on the appendages and on the foils.
Precisely, the foils (kinds of wings that allow the boat to fly on the water). Are there any differences with the old Maître Coq? The foils are a little bigger, right?
Yes there is a huge difference. It’s true that, joking, I said that I had chicken wings before. And now I’m going to have albatross wings because the foils have more than doubled in size. So it’s going to carry the boat much better, make it fly sooner, faster and longer. This will allow us to reach higher average speeds than what I could do with my old boat.
We will go back down very quickly to La Rochelle, from the beginning of September
In fact, this new boat is even more efficient?
Yes, it allows you to go faster. But it’s up to me to make the boat more reliable since the “suds” are necessarily, the shocks are certainly a little more violent. So we worked with the architect Guillaume Verdier and all my team to make it more reliable, to reinforce important parts of the boat to be able to go fast in complete reliability.
And so are you planning to come to La Rochelle soon to show it to us?
Sure ! We finish the launch, a little preparation, navigation and also development with the shipyard. And very quickly, from the beginning of September, we will have to go down again with “Maître Coq V” in the port of La Rochelle.
And so with this boat, the first deadline for you is the Route du Rhum (departure on November 6). There is a qualification to do first. Will it do in terms of preparation?
Yes. Of course it’s going to be very short, but that’s not a big deal because we’re going there to learn how to handle the boat, to gain experience with a view to the Vendée Globe round the world race. The Route du Rhum is part of this first level to learn how to sail on this boat. So of course I’m not going to the Route du Rhum necessarily to win it, but more to learn and record data, information on its behavior in order to progress later.
It’s really a boat that we made for the world tour and to try to play the leading roles in this great race.
This Route du Rhum is actually a run-in…
Yes quite. You can’t compete for victory with a boat, a brand new prototype, since obviously there will be technical and technological contingencies to be developed. We will see what level we are at, so there is no pressure for this race, except the pleasure of doing the best possible. And if we can make the surprise, we will of course do it. But before pulling on the boat, you have to take it in hand. We must not skip the stages and go slowly, quietly. There are a lot of strengths on this boat, the fact of having big foils. It will be necessary to know the limit cases of loads and ruptures well so as not to break equipment. It’s an apprenticeship that’s going to be a little long and that’s why we’re going to take it easy for this first race.
Well and then there is the Vendée Globe, your first objective…
Clearly, we made this boat for the Vendée Globe. When I say that, I mean that we didn’t skimp on the structural reinforcements without first putting the weight of the boat at all costs. We rather preferred to play on enhanced reliability, adding a little weight in places to strengthen. So it’s really a boat that we made for around the world and to try to play the leading roles in this great race.