13.11.2008 Back to news

Much emotion for Kito

© T Martinez / Groupe Bel

A glowing line of honour met Kito de Pavant, whose tears said it all, this evening. On either side of the Sables d'Olonne channel, Groupe Bel workers who came especially from Sablé, Evron and La Rochelle lit smoke signals and cried out their support for their skipper, lighting up the night with their heartfelt support.

On board Groupe Bel, Kito was unable to contain his emotion. After the anger resulting from the dismasting of his monohull and the end of his Vendée Globe, following 28 hours of racing, the skipper knocked for six by the incredible fervour accompanying his project.

It was barely 3 o’clock in the morning, when Groupe Bel returned to the pontoon in Port Olona. This was the same pontoon he left last Sunday to set out on one of the finest round-the-world races. Deeply moved, first Kito hugged the members of his team and Groupe Bel one after the other, before speaking: “I’m going to feel a great emptiness in the next three months. It’s very frustrating not to be out there beneath the stars and the full moon. The fine weather has returned and I didn’t even get past the first storm. The boat was hit by a stronger wave than the others and the mast fell. The adventure stopped there. I continue to think of all those racers who are carrying on and planing along on the trade winds. I hope they make the most of it! They are extraordinarily fortunate. I hope that they will all be there at the finish, because the welcome I received this evening was exceptional and it’s terrible, I would so loved to have finished at a later date in Sables d'Olonne…”On the pontoon, cries of “Kito, Kito, Kito…” rose. “Thank you all for being here. I would like to say to my technical team that I completely assume what happened. And I’d like to thank Antoine (Fiévet, Chairman of the Groupe Bel Board of Directors) who is here tonight, as he is each time, for the good times and also when things go wrong.”

A quarter of an hour earlier, Yannick Bestaven also entered the channel. Like Kito, he abandoned the race on Monday after dismasting. With Marc Thiercelin, this makes three competitors to dismast in the Bay of Biscay and six other solos have returned for technical reasons. A few metres from Groupe Bel, the technicians from the Bernard Stamm team, had only just lifted the work tent they has used during the repair of the boomsprit, broken when the boat ran into a cargo on Sunday. This evening, the Swiss cast off and ascended the channel; towards the ocean this time. He set out again beneath the stars, on his Vendée Globe.

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