Vendée Globe - Alan Roura's first words after finishing

Calm and contented, the stress gone, Alan Roura was a picture of happiness as he was reunited with his baby daughter Billie and his wife Aurelia minutes after finishing his second Vendee Globe in 17th position on La Fabrique...here are Alan's first words after finishing. 

"The rankings, yes we follow it and we are focused on it  throughout the race, but we do not realize what we are actually doing. We had difficult weather conditions and my technical problems cost me dearly. At one point, you say to yourself that you just have to finish and regress a little bit to adventure mode; you learn to sail differently. I still wanted to have fun to enjoy it but it took a little while to get there.

The race was painful for me for a good part of the course. I have the whole keel system not working any more I had my first problems in the entrance to the deep south. And from the south of New Zealand, I can no longer cant the keel. At one point, my keel was moving around. And then I was thinking, I hesitated, considering stopping. And then, sailing without a “keel” means sailing with a boat that heels a lot. For the skipper it's hard, you have to accept to live a race in which you will inevitably are going to be beaten by competitors.

I managed to experience this race in a different way. As a sailor you need to do races like this with some hardship for me, this Vendée Globe was like that. Now I am ready to come back and to it stronger. Meantime I will already start by making myself good food! I'll be back on the water soon. After with what support? I do not know. I smile and I do want to be back on the race. As long as you haven't won the Vendée Globe, you want to go back. But I wouldn't sign up if it was just to relive this Vendée Globe once again, but rather for an edition like 2016! I wish I could be competitive and to race with the boats in front."

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