Foto copyright Mark Lloyd/ DDPI/Vendee Globe
Fuente info Oktopod for Vendée Globe
Brian Thompson’s first quotes
It’s brilliant, what a day, what a beautiful day, sun’s out, great seas, it’s amazing
I’ve been fighting to stay ahead of Dee (Dee Caffari, AVIVA) the whole time and keeping my keel problem a secret, and last night the ram broke, and disengaged from the keel
I’m amazed I’ve done any sailing at all, because every day I spent my whole time down below fixing various things, electronics, weather equipment, I mean it’s just amazing
I’d rather have done the race with a bit more sailing involved but I’m pleased of myself for getting through all those things and not getting down and fighting every problem and somehow get to the finish line one way or another
20 minutes before I crossed the finish line, I thought i’ve only got to do one tack nothing can go wrong now, and just had a beautiful crossing of the line
I had a few problems in the bow, but I managed to pull up the repairs, the worst thing was getting stuck up the mast on Christmas day, that was very rough, bumpy and not christmasy at all
She’s obviously had a mainsail problem (on Dee Caffari aboard Aviva), but peen pushing quite hard, the keel not working for the last two three weeks has been hard, no electricity either, and no weather information, the last three days I’ve had very little power, and the only thing working was the autopilot
5th is an excellent result overall, I’m quite happy about that, I wanted to be in the top five, but I hadn’t expected the race to be such a race of attrition, but that’s pretty good out of 30 boats
DEE CAFFARI ARRIVAL QUOTES
There were people there waving and saying hello and I thought that was pretty cool and then a random motor cruiser came up and shouted Go Dee! And I thought wow I’m close to the finish now. Then when everybody came out towards me… I knew there would be some Ribs and stuff, but this sight was brilliant and it’s such a gorgeous day. The sunset was beautiful and a lovely sunrise and I had dolphins, so I knew it was going to be a good day.
On finishing sixth: If you’d said that in the beginning, I’d have laughed in your face. I had an awesome start, then I made a few mistakes tactically in the Atlantic and the intensity of the race in the South Atlantic was just phenomenal. I sort of said, I’m not sure if I can do this. I was OK in the south, then I lost a bit of confidence in my first storm. Everybody was having lots of problems and that was when all the damage was happening and there was Yann’s injury and I lost all my confidence then.
Cape Horn was interesting. It was quite nice to hang out and know that the other two were with me. And I had an awesome Atlantic – I suddenly turned the corner and I’d grown into my boat. I did the repair on the main to keep it going a little bit longer. We just decided as a team to go for it and if it fell apart we’d deal with that later. I was really pleased to close the gap and then the Doldrums were a nightmare. A horrible two days, the worst two days of the race. I lost 300 miles to Brian in two days. Then I spent the North Atlantic closing the gap, but I just ran out of runway today. So I didn’t quite get him, but I’m happy to have pushed him all the way to the line.
Literally I started sailing in an Open 60 eighteen months ago. In my first solo race I hated it and cried all the way and got dismasted right before the end. I thought, Oh my God! What have I let myself in for? But I loved this and have grown into the boat all the time.
And your team? The reason why I’m here is that they did such a good job preparing the boat. I owe them lots of booze and I know I did them proud. They’re really chuffed with their project and we did it together. They did the boat and I just had to go and sail it and they’ve been there whenever I needed them.
