“It’s a race that made me dream when I was a kid,” says Jérémie Beyou

If the Route du Rhum nourished the dreams of Jérémie Beyou in his early youth, the venerable race did not often smile on him. After his fine second place in 2014, the Breton sailor had to retire four years later on Charal 1, his brand new boat. Will Charal 2 be subtitled “revenge”, for this 12th edition which leaves Saint-Malo on Sunday? In any case, the 46-year-old skipper is counting heavily on his new Imoca launched last July. First to finally win the Vendée Globe 2024, after the huge disappointment of 2020. But until then, the three-time winner of the Solitaire du Figaro would see himself adding a line to his record by raising his arms this fall at Pointe -in Pitre.

What does the Route du Rhum represent for you?

It’s a race that made me dream when I was a kid. Today, it’s the Vendée Globe that makes everyone dream, but when I was a teenager, it was the Route du Rhum. With my parents, we went to the scene on Saturday, the day before departure, and on Sunday we returned home. We were lucky enough to live by the sea, in the Bay of Morlaix, and on Sunday evening, when the visibility was good, we could see the lights of the first competitors out to sea. I also remember the victories of Philippe Poupon of which I was a fan. I really kept the eyes of a child or teenager in relation to this race. I never won it, I would like that to happen one day.

How would you define this boat compared to the previous one?

It is narrower but when you look at it, however, you have the impression that it is wider. He is very potbellied in the front. The hull is very different, which allows us to pass the sea well, downwind in particular. We have very different appendages, in particular large rudders at the rear which give us a lot of stability on the road. But also many other small details. If only physically, Charal 2 is very different from Charal 1.

We also have a more solid team, with a structure that has already experienced this failure four years ago. We are about twenty, almost twice as many. We hope not to relive that and we redouble our efforts so that it does not happen even if we are aware that we do not control everything. We are more pros, we have more experience, more hindsight. We have a better machine than four years ago, even if we had already made a big leap forward.

Another great sailor, Franck Cammas joined the adventure last July. What is his role ?

We have a team of specialists on land and one of specialists on the water, plus a design office. The figurehead on the sailing side is Franck. He is essential and we are lucky that he agreed to come to our project. He is really the cornerstone of the development of the boat and the navigations, with me of course. He’s there to push me, go into detail, understand the boat as quickly as possible.

I am very happy and honored that he accepted this challenge. Fine-tuning these boats isn’t easy and fine-tuning them for someone else, because I’m the one who’s going to set off on my own, that’s also a bit special. We get along really well, he is super competent and competitive, it’s great.

For you, the main objective remains the Vendée Globe in 2024…

Yes. It’s really comparable to an athlete preparing for the Olympics. The goal is the Games. But if during this period of four years, the athlete can hang the title of European champion and world champion in passing, he will not deprive himself of it. That said, it is almost impossible to make a boat that performs well in all conditions on all courses.

Our course reference is the Vendée Globe. Nevertheless, we are making every effort to try to adapt the boat as much as possible for the Route du Rhum because it is still an important objective for us. If we had wanted a boat ready for the Route du Rhum, well proven, of which we know the slightest adjustment, we would have put the boat on more than a year ago. But that would have been much too early for the next Vendée Globe (launched in July).

Charlie Dalin on Apivia is presented as the big favorite of this Route du Rhum in Imoca. Do you agree ?

Yes. I would prefer it to be me (smile), but it totally makes sense that it was him. He won the three events at the start of the season, he was second in the Jacques-Vabre last year where we finished third. It goes super fast, in particular thanks to its foils. We have to progress. First you get closer to your level of performance, and then you exceed it. He’s the favourite, we’re the outsiders, sometimes it’s good to be in the hunter’s shoes.

You were talking about JO earlier. What do you do when you prepare for four years for a deadline, and everything falls apart due to damage?

You should know that it can happen, without being paralyzed by this observation. You have to love what you do. I love my work environment. My job is my passion. I’m lucky to have a super competent team around me, motivated people, a great boat. Every morning, when I arrive at the technical base in Lorient, I feel like I’m living a dream. I’m not going to stop because of an abandonment or a poor performance. This life is the one I’ve always dreamed of. I am unable to stop.

Environmental concerns are becoming more and more important, in your job as elsewhere. Associations evoke the environmental risks due to the crowd gathered at the start of the Route du Rhum. What inspires you?

I am neither scientist nor politician. I’m just an observer of what’s happening at sea. Of course, we see damage, but it’s not lost. It is necessary to make efforts. Some have already been done, for example in terms of fishing. We see more and more marine mammals, dolphins everywhere. I have the impression that we see fewer plastic bags. I don’t really like to be in catastrophism, even if I also see pollution, which is worrying in certain countries, certain continents.

On a daily basis, in our team, we make a lot of effort and we are modernizing. Ecology is also an important concern for the entrepreneur that I am. I want to be irreproachable socially but also respect the environmental rules within the company. I think at my humble level, I’m doing the right thing but I’m not shouting it from the rooftops.

Associations denounce the impact of the Route du Rhum on the environment https://t.co/sDlBTZN7ee

— 20 Minutes (@20Minutes) September 30, 2022

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I trust the scientists and the politicians to show us the way and to develop rules, to legislate so that we follow these directives. It’s not up to me to invent them, to say that there are too many people at the start of the Route du Rhum. What I see are people happy to be there, a fabulous party, people who still have this post-Covid frustration, who need to live things, to dream.

What efforts are you talking about?

Our boats, they don’t do two races and then trash! They go around the world several times, they hardly pollute. When you go around the world, some boats are self-sufficient and others consume 200 liters of diesel in three months. When you stay on land, with your car, your oil-fired boiler and others, it’s not just 200 liters of diesel that you consume…

Then the sails are reused, the materials are sorted and recycled. Our sport is rather at the forefront in this regard. Obviously, we are not blameless. We use materials for which we have not found all the solutions. Research is being done on this, on organic fabrics, in linen for example, but before managing to find the resistance that we ask for, in particular on our masts, our hulls, our foils… We will not be able to go as quick. Maybe one day we will be told to stop racing.