Above: Seguin at the helm of the flighty and nervous VPLP-designed Diam 24 tri on which he won the 2017 Tour Voile. Not the easiest boat to manage (or hang onto) one-handed let alone beat the cream of French ocean racing… plus a hoard of hungry student crews eager to take some big scalps. But set alongside the idea of racing a violent and powerful Imoca (left) around the world on his own, the Diam must have felt like a walk in the park. On top of the levels of dexterity needed to manage a bouncing Imoca with only one hand, sailing in this way also places much greater physical demands upon the sailor
‘For the rest, the boat was strictly the
same as it had been for her previous skippers [ed: in terms of manoeuvring apparatus]. I have a comfortable seat and a “good bed” because getting quality rest periods is key – that too is an efficiency measure, more than a pure comfort consideration.’ Keeping an eye on Seguin when the
he’d be the best person to guide my Imoca voyage of discovery – I knew nothing about these boats, he’d taken them around the world.’ As a result Apicil became a ‘true South-
ern Ocean machine’, says Seguin, ‘as by the time I got to Port Olonna all my questions, some annoyingly mundane, had been answered. I felt… equipped.’ Both men are on the same wavelength
when it comes to their sailing philosophy, and for both having to wrestle with your boat is out of the question. Things need to be simple, to enable smooth and swift sail reduction manoeuvres (‘so it can be done faster than the others’), light and easy –
54 SEAHORSE
and to the detriment of sheer power wherever necessary. ‘I let Jean lead the implementation of
these ideas at first, frankly I hadn’t a clue to start with and learned a lot over a col- laboration that lasted three years.’ Ergonomically, and this is rather surpris- ing, the only major modification was the addition of a sleeve on the handle of the grinder, a very rudimentary receptacle for Seguin’s handless left wrist… ‘I can get by with one arm on a Class40
winch,’ he says, ‘but the loads on a 60- footer are just too enormous. We had to solve this, and did so straight away, but that’s it!
going got tough, one could not help but be filled with dread at the idea of him ventur- ing onto the foredeck in a blow. After all, who hasn’t heard the adage ‘One hand for yourself, one hand for the boat’? Fine when you’re blessed with the luxury of a pair, and even then we’ve all been guilty of foolish behaviours resulting in retrospec- tive cold sweats. ‘Yes, that’s a big topic,’ says the Apicil
skipper. ‘Everyone is looking at me and I had to fight quite a bit to be accepted by some race organisers, so I take extra pre- cautions, clip on early and so on. ‘I also anticipate and tend to drop sail before the wind picks up too much rather
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