Though a two-time victor of the Transat Jacques Vabre and a seasoned sailor, Paul Vatine wasn’t part of the “family”. “I had several handicaps,” he was fond of recalling. “I wasn’t born directly into the world of sailing – my father was a joiner; I wasn’t from Brittany, and I was already getting on (21) when I began racing.”
Although he disappeared while sailing with a crewmate, Vatine was a singlehanded racer at heart. “I’m at my best when racing alone. It’s a very egotistical adventure. You’re alone in victory as well as in defeat. You’re in harmony with the sea. Sometimes, I clamber onto the float and just gaze at this boat as if was a huge, wounded bird.”
Oddly, it’s when you’re alone that you understand how important others are: “When you’re far out to sea, you realize that in everyday life you can’t see the wood for the trees: there’s your work, the stress, the problems. Now, I know my life has meaning when I’m reaching out to others. A brush with danger brings you back to love.”
Should we really be talking about a sailor’s death at sea, rather than recall his successes and his talent? Yes. We present exploits—and crossing the Atlantic is one—as if they were an everyday event. But with no fewer than ten transatlantic races each year now, we no longer have any sense of just how hard it is. Never forget that, lurking behind sport as a spectacle lies danger: “I admit it, I’m afraid, I’m in the same state as on the night before an exam. I know that bad weather is part of the deal; but it’s stronger than me, I’m afraid,” said Paul Vatine before a race. “Where we’re going, we’re merely tolerated. The ocean alone decides…”
LR
Ellen MacArthur: the shooting star