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Jean Luc Van Den Heede meets with Philippe Monnet
12:33 p.m. EST Apr 9, 2004
March 9 this year, in his fourth try in five years, Jean-Luc Van Den Heede set a new record for a solo circumnavigation "the wrong way", East to West.
Jean Luc beat the previous record holder Philippe Monnet by 29 days, setting the new record at 122 days, 14 h, 3 min, and 49 sec. Day in and day out, year after year, Jean Luc would check Philippe's log, compare to his own, and agonize about the differences.
So what was it like to finally beat him, and then meet with Philippe, his ghost competitor on the oceans for so many years?
Well, as you can tell from the picture - the rendez-vous was worthy of true champions.
Jean Luc also offers a post-sail technical report on Adrien:
"When we took down the sails we had a few surprises. The topstay on the genoa is fixed to a bracket held in place by two screws with a shaped washer. We had glued the screws in place so they couldn’t work loose. We were astounded to find that they had become completely unscrewed. The stay only managed to remain in place thanks to a wire!
The technicians, who installed the wind speed monitor discovered that the gauge detector was also unscrewed, in spite of being fixed inside the boat’s living quarters. The best explanation for these incidents are the terrible conditions we went through in the southern seas. Adrien had a tough ride for weeks on end, with the continual waves causing perpetual vibrations. Thank God, no parts of my body are held in place by screws. I also think that these problems are the result of the extreme temperature variations that we experienced during this voyage.
Going back to the sails, the North Europe sailmakers, aware of the problems we encountered, made me a very good offer. I therefore chose to hand over to them the responsibility for making my next Cuben fiber sails, which are made of highly resistant fibers stuck together, and which satisfied me entirely back in 2002."
Jean Luc is currently in Senegal, visiting a big factory belonging to the Adrien Group.
As for what's next, Jean Luc have said that "I still have Adrien at my disposal for another year and a half, and I’m planning to have some more adventures aboard her. Not around the world, of course, as that’s all over now. But there are other challenges that can be attempted without venturing into the Southern Seas."
Image of Jean-Luc Van Den Heede (right) and Philippe Monnet (left), courtesy vdh.fr
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