Fourth time lucky?

James Boyd spoke to sailing legend Jean-Luc van den Heede prior to his latest attempt on the non-stop westabout record

One of the most remarkable men in sailing will today be setting out on what is the hardest of all round the world record attempts - singlehanded, westabout against the prevailing winds.

Far from being the first occasion Jean-Luc van den Heede has attempted this passage, this will be the Frenchman's fourth attempt at cracking the elusive record of 151 days 19 hours and 54 minutes set in 2000 by Philippe Monnet on board the modified Open 60 UUNet.

If van den Heede makes it on this occasion, and he agrees it is high time he did, he will become only the fifth man to have ever succeeded in making this voyage. The westabout passage was first sailed by Chay Blyth in 1970 who made it round in a pedestrial 292 days. 24 years later Blyth's protege Mike Golding undertook the voyage reducing the time to 161 days sailing the modified Challenge 67 Group 4 in which he subsequently won the BT Global Challenge. Aside from the two Brits and Monnet, the only other person to have succeeded in completing this passage was German Wilfried Erdmann in a laborious 343 days.

Personally there can be few offshore sailors with more miles on the clock than Jean-Luc van den Heede, particularly singlehanded offshore. Despite once upon a time being a maths professor, van den Heede says he has never totted up how many miles he's sailed.

A former instructor at France's famous Glenans sailing school, VDH's solo offshore racing career began with the Mini Transat in which he finished second - twice - once in 1977 and then in 1979. Significantly he has raced in four singlehanded round the world races - the 1986 BOC Challenge in Let's Go, the first Vendee Globe in 1989/90 on 3615 Met finishing third and again four years later coming second on Sofap Helvim. He then came third in the 1994 BOC Challenge. Through this time there were also countless transatlantic races and delivery trips.

We have never broached the subject with van den Heede, but it is almost as if he doesn't like winning, content to show his skill by being on the podium. This is entirely in line with his character - he is always jovial and good humoured, while also being thoroughly self-effacing and unflappable. It is hard to find a competitive bone in him, although his impressive sailing CV would suggest the contrary.

Understandably tired of singlehanded round the world races in the late 1990s VDH became interested in another challenge - the westabout round the world record, but it was not until 1999 that he made his first attempt. This was in his slim red Open 60 yawl named Algimouss, but ended in disaster when round the Horn and into the Southern Ocean his yacht hit a submerged object. The VDH, the great seaman, made it back to Valparaiso, fixed the boat and sailed home.

For his second attempt VDH had a new yacht designed and built for the task. At 75ft LOA the aluminium-hulled Adrien had extra water line length and was designed for sailing upwind unlike the Open 60. Unfortunately on VDH's first attempt aboard his new boat he once again rounded Cape Horn onlyto find that cracks were appearing around the keel of his boat.

Last year he set off again and was making good progress against Monnet's record until he was dismasted in the middle of the Southern Ocean to the south of Australia. VDH jury rigged the boat and got her to Tasmania. Here she was rerigged and as on his previous trips VDH then simply turned round and sailed home.

Since returning to France this year Adrien has been back in the boatyard being refitted, rerigged and having the numerous problems associated with the dismasting fixed. "There were a lot of things to change. The roller furling, the mast, the rigging...everything, " says van den Heede. In particular the problems with the mast step - the reason for the dismasting - have been fixed. "We don’t make the same mistake twice..."

VDH says he has concentrated on getting the boat ready in the yard and hasn't spent time testing her at sea - he doesn't need to... "We spend all the time to repair everything and to check and we have not so much time to try the boat. But I have sailed 60,000 miles on this boat now, which is one and a half times around the world. The log on the GPS says something like 67,000 miles."

Aside from a small problem with his Inmarsat B satcom terminal, used to keep in contact with the outside world, van den Heede at the time of our interview said that everything was ready for him to set off again.

Having been given the green light from meteorologist Pierre Lasnier, that the weather was good to start his attempt, VDH set sail from Les Sables d'Olonne at 1pm yesterday and overnight has been heading up the coast of France. He has a crew with him which he will drop off near Brest, before crossing the Ouessant-Lizard start line sometime today.

"The weather is supposed to be southeast at the beginning. When I cross the line on Friday, there is still wind from the southeast, so I can go a little bit west and after that at the end of Saturday, the wind is changed to the west then northwest and north."



VDH says that the reason for leaving now is to coincide his trip with that of the Southern Ocean summer. Philippe Monnet left in January on his voyage, but VDH says the latest he would go would be mid-December. "I don’t want to meet too much ice and to have less gales as possible it is best to go at this time. So beginning of November is perfect for me."

While VDH must now be one of the most experienced men in terms of the passage from France south down the Atlantic to Cape Horn he says that making a strategy for the Southern Ocean is harder. "I plan that when I have the weather. Each time it is different. You take the low pressure as they arrive and you tack when you have to tack. It is difficult to plan if I stay on 53deg or 55deg or 58degS. There is no exact plan - the plan is to be the right place at the right moment."

A signficant difference between sailing westabout as opposed to eastabout in the direction of all the singlehanded races he has done is that the weather systems are moving in the opposite direction. "They pass very quickly, a lot quicker than in the Vendee, because in the Vendee Globe you follow the low pressure. On this you are going against the low pressure. So you have to change the sails a lot more and you have to adapt everything for the weather." So the process of adapting the trim and the course to the conditions is a lot more vigorous westabout.

Having failed to make it three times now, while Golding and Monnet made it on their first attempts suggests that there has been some bad luck involved on VDH's part and on a passage this long and this arduous it is important for things to go your way. "I don’t know," says VDH. "For me it is not luck - you need to have a boat which is very well prepared and ready to accept plenty of contrary waves and wind and to be able to go upwind for a very long time in strong winds - so the preparation is the most important thing with this adventure, although perhaps a little bit of luck also..."

During his voyages VDH has been highly active in keeping those ashore informed on his progress via his website and through emails. On a previous trip he took some fish with him that during the course of the voyage almost upstaged him. This time he has other travelling companions:

"I am taking something like 100 teddy bears. We offer in France to take teddy bears and the money goes to a foundation. Each time someone sends a teddy bear to go around the world they send some money to two associations – the Marine du Monde which is trying to provide boats to countries with no money and another one to Africa for people who have problems to make water and things like that. So each time they send a teddy bear, they send some money and it goes to these associations."

The teddy bears, says VDH must be small - weighing no more than 40g. They don't get their own cabin, but during the trip he says he will be spending each day with a different bear.

If Adrien makes it round in one piece then VDH is confident she will break the record. " Adrien is faster than the boat of Philippe Monnet, but the problem is to finish, because although it is a boat which is able to go fast in contrary winds, there are thousands of miles and waves trying to break something and you never know how the next wave will hit. The next wave can be the worst one or the best one. Sometimes you fall down for a long time. So the boat must be well prepared and the skipper also… with the skipper it is in the mind."

And how is your mind Jean-Luc? "Good. I want to finish this and I like my boat, I am happy with her and I think it is a very good boat to do that. For me, I think everything will be fine, but you never know."

Bon voyage Jean-Luc...