Word: jeantot
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...muscular, 163-lb. athlete who has a black belt in judo, Jeantot walked off his floating home at Newport as jauntily as if he were returning from a stroll. Of the few bad times during the voyage, the worst, he said, came between Sydney and Cape Horn, when he had to go far south to pick up the prevailing westerly wind. For 13 days near 58° south latitude, he never saw the sun and at tunes could not even see the top of his mast. "Everything on board was wet and cold," he recalls, "and it was dangerous when...
Unlike Sir Francis Chichester, the late great British circumnavigator who spliced the main brace with gin, rum, whisky, brandy, wine and beer, Jeantot consumed no liquor during the trip; through heavy spray and parching sun, however, he remained a heavy smoker of unfiltered Gauloises. Bachelor Philippe is no gourmet, preparing three shipboard meals a day from one can each of vegetables, meat and dessert, heated on his butane stove and forked out of the can directly to save dishwashing. Jeantot's only hedonistic indulgence was a cassette player, with which he regaled himself with favorites that ranged from Pink...
...state-of-the-craft boat was another matter. Jeantot, who has dreamed of little else but circumnavigating the globe since he was a teenager, sank almost every franc he had saved as a highly paid diver into the $270,000 project. His greatest good fortune may have been to meet Naval Architect Guy Ribadeau-Dumas in 1982. Ribadeau-Dumas, 32, who had already designed successful racers, built several ingenious engineering features into Credit Agricole, notably a seawater ballast system that permits speedy adjustment of the boat's trim...
Solo sailors hi an organized race rarely experience the hallucinations and despair that have traditionally afflicted single-handers. One reason is that they are seldom cut off from the real world. Jeantot, for example, talked by radio daily to friends in France. He was also in regular contact with a Rhode Island ham radio operator. All the racers were equipped with a sophisticated electronics system known as Argos that prints out satellite weather information and provides the boat's precise location in latitude and longitude, relieving the mariner's ancient fear that he is lost. "They...
...helpless panic "when a whale tried mating with me," nearly smashing the boat. There is no panacea for thirst, chronic lack of sleep, perpetual cold and clammy discomfort. Why, then, knowing all this, do sailors set out alone, again and again? Not merely because it is there. Explains Philippe Jeantot: "Because it is difficult. I enjoy succeeding in difficult things...