Our friend Chris Museler gives us a head’s up on his latest article for the NY Times…
During the frigid early hours Sunday, François Gabart was on the verge of becoming the youngest winner of the Vendée Globe, the solo, nonstop, around-the-world sailing race. But Gabart, a normally bubbly and joking Frenchman, showed no signs of elation.
Gabart, 29, raised a hand as he saw his father, his mentor and his sponsor pull up alongside him about four hours from the finish in Les Sables-d’Olonne, France. But he did not speak to them. “It was quite disappointing to us,” said Gabart’s mentor, Michel Desjoyeaux, the only sailor to win the race twice. “We didn’t know a François like that. He was sailing, he was racing, he was finishing the job.”
What Desjoyeaux saw that morning was a changed person, a champion who knows how quickly the sea can stop you in your tracks and how not to just finish, but win. Read on.
