Boris Herrmann at the Vendée Globe: To the Gates of Hell

It would now probably be the last moment, shortly before the start of the Vendée Globe on Saturday. You could grab Boris Herrmann by the shoulder again and whisper your own words into his ear: “Please remind me never to do that again!”

And yet Boris Herrmann is back at the start of the Vendée Globe, on this hunt for crazy people that only a select few were able to manage. The bare numbers: More than 600 people were in space, thousands on Mount Everest. But fewer than 200 sailors have sailed solo non-stop around the world. It is one of the sport’s last great adventures.

A small, non-exhaustive list of the dangers and obstacles that lurk on the world’s oceans: icebergs, whales, mysterious orca attacks, containers lost from cargo ships, storms tearing sails, cold that creeps into the core, the eternal tremors of the waves that… deprive you of sleep. The loneliness.

Nevertheless, this time there are 34 sailors and six female sailors at the start on Sunday in the bay of Les Sables d’Olonne (1 p.m.), more than ever before. Like Boris Herrmann, many of them set off again, despite all the hardships. At the finish, the 43-year-old knows that “all torment is immediately forgotten.” That half of them probably won’t arrive but will get into trouble somewhere on the world’s oceans? It’s like the taste of salt on your tongue.

The ordeal was thought up in 1989 by the Frenchman Philippe Jeantot. Since then, the race has started every four years in Les Sables-d’Olonne on the Atlantic coast. Alone, without stopping and without outside help, it travels over 45,000 kilometers around the world. The route is cruel – and circumnavigating the eternal ice of Antarctica is a dreaded affair. After the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of the African continent, the course leads along the ice boundary through the Southern Ocean. It passes Australia and New Zealand. The sailors then pass the loneliest point in the world, a patch of water where the astronauts are closer to the ISS than the closest people on land.

A sip of whiskey for the deceased at the bottom of the sea

Then the legendary Cape Horn awaits, for some sailors the “gateway to hell”: Here the Pacific and Atlantic embrace, angry winds force the waves powerfully onto the ships. Anyone who passes here takes a sip of whiskey on the deceased at the bottom and pours the rest into the sea to please Neptune – sailors are still superstitious people today. Head north onto the home straight, back to Les Sables-d’Olonne. A new year will have begun by the time the winner sails into port. The sailors last spent 80 days on the 2020/21 edition.

The race was inspired by the Golden Globe Race in 1968. Out of nine participants, only one reached the finish line, making Briton Robin Knox-Johnston the first to complete a solo non-stop circumnavigation of the world. When he arrived after 312 days, he was celebrated as a hero in the kingdom. But in the modern era of the Vendée Globe, only French people won. Has the time now come when the Grande Nation has to bow to a sailor from Germany? At least for top favorite Charlie Dalin, Herrmann is “an opponent to keep an eye on.”

At the Vendée Globe 2020, Herrmann earned a lot of respect with a courageous race. Until the end he was on course for the winner’s podium. Until that last damned night when he collided with a fishing boat shortly before the finish and dragged himself to the finish in fifth place. Now Boris Herrmann is more trusted.

Especially because he is with the Malizia Seaexplorer III has one of the most interesting ships. Most of the yachts in the field are sailing on wings, and Boris Herrmann’s ship also lifts itself out of the water on wings. With a massive hull, it is specially equipped for heavy seas. Herrmann incorporated his experiences from the Arctic Ocean into the design, where the waves constantly battered the sailors and the ships had to slow down so as not to sink their noses into the next wave. The Malice should be faster where the others have to exercise caution. In return, Herrmann accepts that he will have disadvantages in the light wind sections at the beginning of the race.

The new building is said to have cost a mid-single-digit million amount, and Herrmann put everything on one card. “If the new boat doesn’t run, if it doesn’t work, then we can pack up. My career and now everything depends on it,” says Herrmann in an NDR documentary that accompanies him as he prepares for this Vendée Globe. But the Hamburger can breathe a sigh of relief, the bet seems to be paying off. After all, that was the case Malice set a world record in the Atlantic; on May 26, 2023, she covered 640.7 nautical miles (1,187 kilometers) within 24 hours, a monohull has never been faster.

And yet: This time he is even more excited than at his premiere. “I don’t know exactly why that is,” says Boris Herrmann a few weeks before the start. “Why am I doing this? Do I even want that?” Herrmann can be seen pondering in the documentary. But maybe doubts are just part of a healthy mind when embarking on such an adventure.

The forefather of circumnavigation, Robin Knox-Johnston, had a simple answer to the question of why. “I sail around the world simply because I damn well want to.”