Route du Rhum: Boris Herrmann manages expectations

For Boris Herrmann, the popular 41-year-old German solo ocean racer who took fifth on the last Vendée Globe, managing the expectations of the hundreds of thousands of fans he has at home now and a big media following, is all part and parcel of his second Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe.

Herrmann left at the start of his Vendée Globe with a hard core following but very quickly his storytelling and his performance became national news. Towards the end if his race he was on all the major news and sports channels and was greeted as a hero on his return. His book telling the story of his race was at the top if bestseller lists for weeks.

Now with a brand new VPLP designed Malizia-Seaexplorer just launched mid -July there could easily be a belief shared among the legions of new found ocean racing fans at home that the new latest generation boat should be the perfect passport to a podium finish first time out.

“In my progression curve here four years ago, I had already done two years racing with the boat, two Transatlantics. Then I was at 90 percent – now I am at 40 percent. So, people ask me what my expectations are and I explain that ‘yes, I am in a race, yes, I want to compete as best as possible. But I am not going to be competitive, I don’t know the boat well enough, I am not really in race mode.

“But that is great. It comes down to the beauty of this sport. This is a true adventure; I go out there and have no idea about my boat. I mean… ‘what the hell!’ what are we all doing? None of us have really sailed our new boats in 40kts. We don’t know what will happen, what will break, who will do what.”