SÜCHTIG NACH SEGELN
DRIVEN BY THE SEA
01
BORIS HERRMANN START!
02
VENDÉE GLOBE
03
THE GREAT LEAP
04
HOME WATERS
05
AROUND AMERICA GREAT CIRCLE
06
SAILING WITH SCHÜMANN
07
THROUGH THE ICE
08
180 BPM MALIZIA SPIRIT
09
JULES VERNE
10
IN THE VALLEY OF THE MAD
11
THE MACHINE
12
READY TO TAKE-OFF
13
MALIZIA OCEAN CHALLENGE
14
TRANSATLANTIK WITH GRETA
THANKS
In constant use for success.
It would be easy to believe that Germany’s best sailors are related, as all of their names end with »-mann«. There’s Wilfried Erdmann, the extreme sailor, one of fewer than a dozen people to have circumnavigated the globe against the prevailing winds without making a single stop. There’s Jochen Schümann, three-time Olympic champion and the sole German America’s Cup winner to date. And there’s Boris Herrmann, high-sea professional, recordchaser and solo skipper.
The youngest of the top sailors, he has turned what could have been written off as a coincidence into a minor series, a kind of unwritten law. And it’s not just his name that positions him snugly between the other greats, one of whom he admired even as a child for his sailing feats, while teaming up with the other as a navigator and winning renowned high-sea regattas – more of which later on. And even if he’s very different, both as a person and a top sportsman, he has been operating for some time on a similarly rarefied level as these exceptional seamen.
A NEW ERA?
»Maybe,« news magazine »Der Spiegel« wrote in 2008, »a new era has begun with Boris Herrmann.« He had just made his Class40 début and taken a sensational second place in the Artemis Transat, a notoriously tough single-handed race across the North Atlantic. And this was just the beginning.
In the past ten years, the native of Oldenburg has made first- and second-place finishes by the dozen. He is the first German to have won a round-the-world regatta. The first to have gained international recognition in the Imoca60 class. The only one to have sailed non-stop around the world three times, the first time in 100 days, and the second in an unbelievable 47 and now in 80 days.
He could even have been the first German to win the Jules Verne Trophy with the fastest circumnavigation under sail power in a fabulous 40 days. But shortly before the winning passage of Francis Joyon’s Idec Sport, on which he was due to sail, he signed off. A decision he didn’t make lightly – that’s not his style – he had no alternative.
The fact was that Boris Herrmann’s first Vendée Globe project was starting at the same time, and this was his big dream, his ultimate goal and his true destiny.
It is one of the stories told in this book. The greatest challenge he has ever faced: single-handed, non-stop around the great capes, through doldrums and storms, pitching back and forth between total exhaustion and indescribable euphoria on a lightning-fast, incredibly complex, inhumanly sparse carbon-fibre yacht on foils.
What kind of person aspires to such a goal? What’s required to pass such a test? Or rather: to pass with flying colours? Where does a drive like this come from? The book also grapples with these questions.
It’s Boris’s own story, in his own words, bolstered by appraisals and anecdotes from his most significant companions. A very personal, exceptionally open and manylayered sailing book that adds a number of facets to the public and published image of the 39-year-old sailing hero.
LESS LINEAR THAN IT SEEMS
It doesn’t skirt around the trepidation that can be triggered at the start of a solo race, the huge stress factors to which the skipper is exposed, nor why even a man such as Boris can struggle with seasickness at times. A biography whose supposed linearity doesn’t prevent it from showing how erratically some situations in Boris Herrmann’s life have followed one another.
Everything seems logical in hindsight, almost as though there has been a master plan. A young cruiser and dinghy sailor reads in »YACHT« about the MiniTransat race on short 6.50-metre high-sea racers, is gripped by the idea, finds sponsors, somehow makes it to the starting line upon finishing school and makes a very acceptable crossing of the Atlantic. Carries on sailing his dinghy while studying business. Is already planning. Moves up to Class40 after his exams. Closes in on the best in the world, in particular gaining entry to the high-sea scene dominated by the French. Makes the jump to the Imoca class, in which he also impresses in the Barcelona World Race. Joins up with Giovanni Soldini and sets records on Maserati, a modified VOR70. Becomes a crew member on Idec Sport, one of the fastest maxi-trimarans. And now, the climax, a Vendée campaign on Malizia2 – Yacht Club de Monaco, one of the most advanced and best Imocas ever built.
It has the appearance of a smooth run. And in many ways it has been. But there have also been breaks, loose ends, unexpected diversions. These things are typical in an extreme sport that relies heavily on both sponsoring and patronage and isn’t merely a business case, albeit a very good one, but also demands the lifeblood and passion of its promoters. High-end sailing is a sport whose successes are also accompanied by precarious dry spells.
THE WAIT
This book should really have appeared quite some time ago. Boris Herrmann planned to write it in 2011 after his success in the Barcelona World Race, where he came fifth on an old boat, his »apprenticeship for the Vendée Globe« as he once put it himself. At the time, he was aiming to take on the Mount Everest of solo sailing in 2012. But things didn’t turn out that way. Not in 2012, and not in 2016 either.
And maybe he was the first to suspect this. Halfway around the world on Neutrogena, in his mind already almost back in Barcelona, he writes in an email: »A left turn around Cape Horn, then across the Atlantic and home. The descent from the peak. But this’ll be an emotional, winding journey too. What’s coming afterwards, when I’m on the landing stage with my bag beside me?«
The first thing is a great emptiness.
A race we must win! Protecting the oceans is an additional goal for me.
Weeks of exhaustion after this incredible feat of strength. Months of searching – for the next sponsor, the next project, and even to an extent for himself. He has always set the bar extremely high. At one point rejecting, almost categorically, the idea of jumping from one boat to the next as a professional, hiring himself out as a mercenary sailor when there’s no big project on.
At that time, having reached this plateau but not yet the peak, Boris Herrmann’s ascent could have come to an end. The man whose boyish looks and cultivated manner were misinterpreted as signs of vulnerability and lack of grit came very close to failing due to his own incredibly high standards.
INNER RETREAT
Then, once again, his stubbornness, his strength of will, but above all his boundless love of the sea prevailed. To this day this love remains his strongest motivator. It enables him to hold on when the going gets tough and to find alternatives when a direct course is not possible.
Anyone who has sailed with him for a while senses this before they really understand it. One time, in the middle of an Atlantic crossing, he crouches down on deck on the lee side, looks along the spinnaker sheet rope into the huge sail and on to the horizon. A haven of peace in the midst of the wind and the crashing waves. He sits on his haunches for minutes on end without saying a word, his face aglow in the low sun. It would be interesting to know what he’s thinking, what’s going on inside him, but he’s so immersed within himself that it would seem insubordinate to interrupt his inner monologue with a question.
»I like to withdraw into myself sometimes, to dream and find inspiration while I’m steering or trimming,« he says. It’s like a little break for his soul and his brain, overflowing with impressions, as the boat tears unstoppably through the seas.
MULTI-TALENT
It seems practically impossible to overestimate the challenges that the single-handed sailor has to deal with on an Imoca60. He has to be skipper, boatswain, trimmer, navigator, ship’s cook and PR manager in one, 24 hours a day for 70 to 80 days at a time. This requires intelligence, intuition, meticulousness, multi-tasking skills, fitness and an almost superhuman resilience in the face of setbacks.
So maybe it’s a good thing that Boris Herrmann is taking on the Vendée Globe only at his third attempt, in 2020. Because qualities such as these have to develop – hardly anybody has this much experience and maturity at a young age. He wouldn’t have been nearly as good, as complete, as he is now.
The resident of Hamburg, who will race for the Principality of Monaco, has even more to offer. Not only can he sail, he can also share his extreme experience with others: in three languages, with a style of his own and a talent, rare among professionals, for storytelling that goes beyond tweets and posts.
A few years ago he wrote for »YACHT« about chasing records: »State-of-the-art offshore racing boats sail so fast that we have to surmise the optimum course across the seas far in advance. The brain anticipates the formation of the waves, the crests and valleys, projects an imaginary slope before it appears for a few seconds before us at the exact point that we’re steering towards.«
This reads like a metaphor of his life as a navigator and solo skipper who has plotted a course from the small, inland Zwischenahner Meer to the Olympus of high-sea sailing, from the Optimist to the Open60. This course doesn’t even exist. Boris Herrmann still found a way.
After all these years at the finish line – the joy is indescribable.
After years of working towards participation in the Vendée, the hours of start delay due to fog no longer matter.
“THERE ARE TWO TERRIBLE EXPERIENCES THAT A PERSON CAN MAKE: NOT FULFILLING THEIR DREAM, AND HAVING FULFILLED IT”
BERNARD MOITESSIER,
LA LONGUE ROUTE
It’s still very quiet this Saturday morning in the country house in Longeville-sur-Mer, half an hour’s drive southeast of Les Sables d’Olonne. In the remote, slightly dusty AirBnB rental with Ikea guest beds, Team Malizia has set up its headquarters for the week, far away from the hustle and bustle of the Race Village.
The fresh north-westerly wind, which will reach gale force in the Bay of Biscay in the afternoon, is pushing through the old doors and windows and moaning softly in the chimney. The heating gave up during the night, and the house is noticeably cooler this morning. Just a few hours ago, champagne corks were flying and the rooms were filled with excited chatter and laughter.
There’s a hint of a hangover feeling as Boris Herrmann comes down the creaking stairs at seven-thirty in jogging bottoms and fleece jacket, his features still a little crumpled with sleep and bearing the traces of having spent three months alone at sea. But there’s no reason to be down this morning, not at all!
Less than two days ago, on 28 January at 11.19 am, he finished the Vendée Globe, the hardest regatta of them all: single-handed, non-stop around the world. This was the goal he had been working towards for many years, giving everything he had, including the last of his savings. A childhood dream finally fulfilled after 80 days, 14 hours, 59 minutes and 45 seconds.
Not only that: Herrmann has written sailing history.
He‘s the first German to take part in the classic ocean race in which barely more than half of the field usually makes it to the finish. He managed this on his very first attempt, hoisting the black, red and gold flag into the hazy January sky on entering the channel of Les Sables.
Taking 5th place in the tightest sprint to the finish ever seen in the Vendée Globe, the man from Hamburg is now unquestionably one of the best solo skippers in the world. This was the position he had hoped for before the start, but only made this public shortly before Cape Horn. Finishing the race was his primary goal, as he told Yacht in an interview, with the result “depending very much on fortune”.
NOW HE HAS DONE IT
Boris Herrmann, already long established as by far Germany’s most successful ocean sailor, has fulfilled and exceeded all expectations. Even the German Chancellor congratulated him on his “fantastic achievement”. In Germany, Angela Merkel let him know, “we were right there with you”. And even this is an understatement: half of the nation was electrified.
That same day, Niels Annen, Secretary of State in the Foreign Office, nominated Herrmann for the Federal Cross of Merit. Drawing comparisons with the “summer fairytale” of the 2006 World Cup in Germany, some observers have dubbed this the winter fairytale that had the country holding its breath. Newspapers, magazines, TV news, sports programmes and talk shows will be celebrating the finish like a victory for weeks to come.
Almost 20 years after the triumph of Team Illbruck in the Volvo Ocean Race, sailing has finally experienced another great moment, a Boris moment, greater than nearly all the other successes to date – perhaps also because things were not looking so good for quite a while, with this ninth Vendée Globe so punishing for its participants, and Herrmann needing a long time to move up in the race, and because the collision with a fishing trawler in the night before the finish could have dashed all hope.
His ambivalence is palpable this morning, with the orange-red plumes and phosphorous fumes from the smoke fountains and torches marking his arrival in the channel of Les Sables now only a memory. His team has been celebrating with him for two nights, even as he nodded off in his chair and took himself off to bed soon after. His abrupt landing in his new, old life must make him feel like he’s in a film that has been speeded up to an uncomfortable degree. Or like a sudden emergency brake.
LOOK BACK FORWARD
The race – his race – is over. The fight for the highest possible placing, his worries about the boat, being alone, the exhaustion from sleeping in half-hour stretches for weeks on end, interpreting mostly difficult weather conditions, and the sheer mass of all the privations that can hardly be measured – all of this now lies astern. But of course he’s feeling it all still. He has not yet sorted, evaluated, processed and settled it. It will take some time for his head, body and soul to be over all the stress and strain.
“A few weeks” Herrmann reckons. Some former participants talk in terms of months. Four years ago, Conrad Coleman needed “more than half a year”.
Ahead of Boris Herrmann now there lies a new beginning, and an in-between. Less adrenaline, few endorphins, no existential experiences at the limit. But no holiday either, no down time. For him, the professional sailor, the end of the Vendée Globe also means the end of his pay, the expiry of his sponsorship contracts, and the need to develop new prospects for himself and his co-workers.
The world had been cheering him on, up to the day before last. His popularity, increased enormously by his Atlantic crossing with Greta Thunberg, has reached a new height – this will make a lot of things easier. He’s seen as a model athlete in a sport that is still fresh to the media: smart, likeable, honest, telegenic.
However, for the moment these are only possibilities, opportunities, chances – not pay cheques he can use to cover his bills and support his family. This, too, is a reality to which Boris Herrmann has returned.
Marie Louise, known to all as simply Malou, is meanwhile crawling across the cold parquet flooring in her pink romper suit. She didn’t sleep well and was up early. Herrmann’s wife Birte has brought their eight-month-old daughter down to the living room. Seeing her Daddy, she smiles.
Yes! That‘s why we are doing it …
He’s also having trouble adjusting to the sudden calm. Too many thoughts are jostling inside him. They’ve pushed him out of bed already. At the forefront: the images from the collision. How his Seaexplorer – Yacht Club de Monaco, which he had brought around the world with such skill, is now, just 90 sea miles short of the finish, hanging alongside the steel hull of a Biscayan fishing trawler, the bowsprit shattered, the foresail torn on the fishing gear, the starboard foil broken.
“Whenever I’m not otherwise distracted, I’m asking myself what could have been if that hadn’t happened. What a podium finish could have meant, which was absolutely on the cards,” the 39-year-old reflects. “Has this really cost me?”
And another thought: immediately after the crash, when he was on the forecastle retrieving the hanging shreds of the foresail, in a three-meter swell, and surveying the damage to the bowsprit, it suddenly hit him: “That’s that. There goes the small financial standby that I wanted to set aside as starting capital for the next months after the race.”
Then he shakes himself, puts his shoulders back, smiles a little even though this doesn’t make his worries go away, and looks out the window as if the assurance that he needs now is out there somewhere: “I don’t know how we’re going to manage it,” he says. “But we’ll get there somehow.”
This is the adaptability, the resilience, what he himself sometimes refers to as “my stubbornness”, that has accompanied Boris Herrmann throughout the entire Vendée Globe. Sometimes it was really more like being dragged along, so exceptionally hard and unrelenting was the race.
This is how the native of Oldenburg described it, practically unfiltered, almost from the very start. He never kept his doubts and struggles to himself, not even his worries about material matters.
Linked-Out,