Vendée Globe: and seven for Jean Le Cam who crossed Cape Horn this Saturday morning!

And seven! Jean Le Cam crossed the famous Cape Horn for the seventh time. It was 7:01 a.m., at breakfast time in France, when Jean Le Cam passed the longitude of Cape Horn after 54 days 17:59’03” at sea, i.e. 11 days and 8 hours after Yoann Richomme, who had beaten Charlie Dalin by… 9 minutes! In a northwesterly flow of around twenty knots and in the night, the skipper of “Everything begins in Finistère – Armor Lux” is the 17th solo sailor in this 10th edition of the Vendée Globe (16th in the race after abandoning of Yannick Bestaven after Cape Horn) and the first of the straight daggerboard boats to put an end to the South Seas. He is some 1,060 miles ahead of Benjamin Ferré, second boat with straight daggerboards.

The first in 1982 as a teammate of Éric Tabarly

This is the seventh Cape Horn for King John! The first visit took place in 1982. At the time, the Forester was a teammate of Éric Tabarly on “Euromarché”. On board, there are also Michel Desjoyeaux and Roland Jourdain. Twenty-two years later, it was solo at the helm of a 60-footer under the colors of “Bonduelle” that he crossed it… in the lead ahead of Vincent Riou, before finally finishing second in the fifth Vendée Globe.

In 2008, while having a good race, he capsized a few miles before Cape Horn. The race direction asks Vincent Riou and Armel Le Cléac’h to divert. The two skippers find VM Matériaux upside down. In an incredible maneuver, Vincent Riou picks up Jean Le Cam aboard his Imoca “PRB”. It is therefore in doubles that the skipper from South Finistère crosses this Cape Dur, as the sailors call it, for the third time.

First boat with straight fins

Cape Horn is always a passage awaited and at the same time feared by sailors. In 2013, on “Synerciel”, Le Cam sent a video where he admitted to being happy to see him: “Sometimes, it didn’t do anything for me, but now, it’s okay, it’s okay! “.

In 2017, it was at the helm of “Finistère Mer Vent” that he signed a new stint… the fifth! But there’s no question of stopping there. Four years later, after having saved Kevin Escoffier in the meantime, Jean Le Cam, who was progressing on an injured boat (delaminated hull bottom), was able to enjoy his return to the Atlantic.

This year, on his new straight daggerboard boat, he is the first to return to the Atlantic after 54 days. At 64, he proves that experience still pays off.