Manu Cousin crossed the finish line of the Vendée Arctique on Sunday after 13 days, 21 hours and 8 minutes at sea, securing eighth place and taking a significant step toward qualification for the 2028 Vendée Globe. It was hardly a clean run. The skipper of Coup de Pouce battled technical gremlins throughout, including a carbon-mounted chart table that caught fire near the Arctic Circle, fuel leaks, a failing motor and GPS problems that could have ended his bid entirely. But he held on, which counts for everything in this game.
Cousin had known the odds were stacked against him before the start. His team had taken possession of an older IMOCA formerly campaigned by Arnaud Boissières and spent weeks in the workshop. The boat only touched water days before the race began. Most teams would have asked for more time. Cousin simply got going. “We expected difficulties because the boat was relaunched late and we worked intensively on it all winter,” he said during the race. “There have been quite a few technical dramas, especially heading up toward the Arctic Circle.”
The most frightening moment came when Cousin was dozing in the watch seat and spotted smoke coiling around the chart table. The carbon was glowing red. For a moment, he thought he was losing the boat. He dropped the sails and sat down to work the problem, and suddenly the smoke cleared. A hydrogenerator had overheated and failed. That was just one crisis. There were others: fuel leaks, an engine that stalled repeatedly, a GPS that quit. Each glitch multiplied in severity when you’re hundreds of miles from the nearest help.
What came through in his message to the crowd at the prize-giving was characteristic Cousin stubornness. “It wasn’t easy. I picked up quite a few problems,” he said, understating the reality considerably. He credited the boat’s fundamental soundness—deeply modified over winter—with seeing him through. He also took time to appreciate the route itself: the Arctic conditions reminded him of the Southern Ocean, the world’s toughest sailing proving ground.
The final push toward the finish brought rough conditions and hard windward work. Nothing came easily. Cousin ground it out anyway, proving once more why he has finished two previous Vendée Globes. Now he gets to prepare for the next one with hard lessons learned and a qualification box ticked. The boat works. So does he.
