This kind of sailing has a lot in common with mountaineering. If the weather is clearly impossible on the day when it’s your turn to try for the summit, you don’t go.
Roland Jourdain, having successfully nursed Véolia Environnement to within reach of Ponta Delgada, needed a forecast of at least 4 days of favourable winds to sail safely to Les Sables d’Olonne. The forecast is not even near that, so he has retired and taken his boat into port.
Looking remarkably calm in his last video report, he pointed out that he had no intention of setting out with a very real chance that someone else would have to risk his life to save him when his boat capsized, and that
The sea is not a poubelle
(a dustbin, named after the 19th century Prefect of the Seine, Eugène Poubelle, who introduced a regulation requiring Paris landlords to provide bins for their tenants to put their rubbish in, ending the ancient practice of tossing it into the sewers which drained straight into the Seine.) He didn’t want his beloved Véolia Environnement to join the containers Mich’ was dodging on the last leg of his triumphant journey.
Bravo, Bilou – the only competitor left who could stay the pace with Mich’ Desj’. They’re missing you at Les Sables d’Olonne.
