The rain was torrential, dropping out the sky by the bucket load. But no worries, it was a quietly but obviously delighted Boris Herrmann who proudly docked his new Malizia 4 after taking second place on the Route du Rhum. Boris, is as the French would say, quite particular. For one thing he swaps between languages smoothly and easily like probably no other skipper does, he prioritises time to talk to the local women who present him with the p'tit punch, fruit, flowers and a mahooosive bottle of rum.
But most off all this morning he is proud of his team who delivered a reliable, fast boat which required minimal downtime fixing stuff. On his part he is amusingly and gently self deprecating - almost without thinking. Asked about returning to solo racing he says 'it is like riding a bike, you just get back into it' or 'I am just the pilot' and 'I am like a bis driver bringing her home' But he is not, stroking his beard almost shyly he remarks this is his 25th transatlantic. And right now he loves it.
Teamwork makes the.......boat reliable
" I am so happy with the result, the more I think about it, I am really so happy. But most of all I am happy with this team who are mainly quite young with some good experience of Pifou (Pierre-François "Pifou" Dargnies) and Henry our boat captain and there are a few people that despite their young age have a lot of experience and professional background. I feel like I was just the pilot but in most cases we have some problems, like I think Sam Goodchild would normally be here now, he must have had some problems. These things get in our way all the time, so it depends a lot on the team if you can just be able to get to the finish without too much trouble. So this time I am really happy. On the Transatlantic race we just a problem with the foil case, but this time we got to the finish with no problems. You are depending on the mechanics of the boat for your sporting career."
Experience "This was my 25th transatlantic so it becomes a bit routine – it is a bit like a bus driver (laughs) – bringing it home. I totally loved it and this was one of my more competitive ones. I was feeling happy and free to go tp eally send it. I had nothing to account for. I was not worried about it (the boat being new). Last time, four years ago, I was worried about so many things. I am a bit more happy and relaxed in life, I can just let go of these thoughts .
She is really strong upwind. And what I can observe in videos of the other boats, like Sam Goodchild and Elodie, they have these skimming foiling and are maybe a bit easier to manage. This boat jumps out of the water and so I really have to manage her ride height. The foil goes much deeper in the water, but she is very versatile, polyvalent, she can do anything.
Great racing
"It was a bit disappointing to miss the train that Coco was on but after that it was completely different. I had a good race with Sam Goodchild nearly til the end, with Elodie Bonafous and Francesca Clapcich on my old boat which she was doing very well on, she had some problems but I am very happy to not be beaten my old boat. The new boat is polyvalent, good downwind and upwind, a little better downwind than the old boat but a bit rock and roll a bit rodeo, there were times when I did not really know what to do with the boat, getting thrown around a bit, but after that phase it was a real."