Geronimo takes the Jules Verne Trophy 2004

Here are the first reactions given by Olivier de Kersauson soon after crossing the finish line north of Ushant.
Q. Olivier, you and your crew on board Geronimo have just crossed the Jules Verne Trophy finish line between the Lizard and Ushant. It must have been a pretty hairy experience given the northerlies you have at the moment?
Olivier de Kersauson: Yes, the last 24 hours have been quite complicated. But we've done it. I feel like someone's who's been hanging by his balls for the last month and has just been let off the hook! We're delighted! It's over and this is where it stops.

Q. What were things like on board for you and the crew when you crossed the line - it must have been a huge relief, as well as incredibly satisfying?
Olivier de Kersauson: We were pretty happy. It was the Jules Verne we set sail for and we've really had to work for it. We weren't sure at all of rounding the Horn, we weren't sure about anything. We've done it all against maximum hostility - real hostility. There's no doubt that finishing today is an enormous satisfaction for the crew. The Atlantic was complicated. Everyone else finds westerlies at the Azores, but we have to have northeasterlies. We've always been in the most difficult situation every time. It's true that it's great to get out of the most difficult situation every time - it may be exhausting, but it is a great feeling. I think that there is real satisfaction in this for every member of Geronimo's crew. This voyage belongs to them. We really had to go for it day and night, with no let-up. It was very hard going in the Southern Ocean. After that, we had to put up with very high winds and then no winds, as the nightmare of last year came back to haunt us, and even at the end, the wind was anything but favourable and tried to stop us getting home. We had to go north before we could come back… Nothing we didn't work for, nothing clear, nothing simple - we've had to grab and grasp at everything. On the other hand, it's been a fantastic Jules Verne. We really feel that everything we've done, every minute, every hour and every moment at the helm has contributed to bringing us through against all the odds. And that's very rewarding.

Q. But there must have been happier times too? The Indian Ocean must be a good memory, before the horrors of the Pacific. So can you tell us about these two completely different faces of the waters around Antarctica?
Olivier de Kersauson: This round-the-world voyage has been rather like a film: plain sailing, with wonderful light and magnificent surfing all the way from Brest until east of the Kerguelen Islands. It was dreamlike sailing. The sea conditions were perfect for surfing, the boat went really well and we had a fantastic time - we were having real fun and every hour was a pleasure. After that, the world turned upside down, with every hour cursed, with hardship, difficulties, cold, fatigue, fear - and just about every negative emotion. We really saw the two faces of the ocean. It was odd. I've never known a round-the-world voyage like it, with two such contrasting extremes. We had all the fun in the first month and all the horrors in the second, with an endless Atlantic, more calms, days that... and the disappointment of convincing ourselves that, having had it so hard rounding the Horn in really difficult conditions and such a hostile Southern Ocean, we would be rewarded a little as we came back north. But, of course, we had none of that. I believe that even if no one actually said it out loud, there was a real feeling of frustration and injustice on board. But there is no justice in these things, although people always imagine - and it's only natural - that the balance of luck will change. But no, we had to put up with crap all the way through the second half of the voyage. If that's sailing, then I don't want any more of it and I wouldn't have started it if I'd known that such things were possible. We all expect hard times and happy times and we all expect periods of doubt, fatigue and hostility, but to encounter such systematic hostility and sail half way round the world into the wind - well, that's not the purpose of this boat. This second half really has been a nightmare. Hoping every day that things will improve, and finding every day that they get a bit worse. It's a nightmare, there's no other word for it.

Q. Olivier, you said that if you'd known that you would have to live through 10 days of hell in the South Pacific, which was so punishing for the boat and the men, you wouldn't have gone at all?
Olivier de Kersauson: Absolutely not, and I really mean it. If I'd known it was going to be like that, that it was going to be so hard and at the very limits of possibility in a sea that hostile and dangerous, well… I sailed round the world single-handed in a multihull 15 years ago and the conditions were sometimes difficult, but nowhere near as difficult as those we have had. But at least I was on my own. What I mean is that when you're in the Southern Ocean in truly horrendous and dangerous conditions but you're not alone and have to make sure that all these men can return home, the psychological burden is much heavier. Single-handed, you make your own choices, but with a crew, you look at them and say to yourself "bloody hell, I've got to get these guys home". Which is not the same thing at all. It's an enormous pressure, an unremitting pressure which is highly oppressive at the same time. You can't afford to make a mistake. You're relying on luck.

Q. And what about Geronimo, that's the big surprise. How did she stand up to it all?
Olivier de Kersauson: The boat never let us down! We don't understand it! We simply don't know how! It was fantastic in the cockpit just now, with all the crew kissing the boat. It was incredible! How? I don't know, I just don't know… When I see the blows we've taken, even in the past 24 hours, virtually into the wind at 20 knots and more, which you'd think could break anything, and yet she still carried on, still carried on. The boat has a real talent! This is a great boat! We'll have to find out where the noise is coming from on the port beam, of course, but otherwise, the boat's fine. It's a boat that returns our love and has never let us down. What we've done, we've done in some really terrible conditions, but she has always come through. Although we've made her do some terrible things and stopped short of making her do others, we've not always been in control, like when we found ourselves in the (…) where the boat was making 49 knots - no one could do anything about it, but the boat never let us down. That's wonderful.

Q. And despite all of that, Olivier, you've come through in 63 days, 13 hours and 59 minutes - does that time sound incredible to you when you hear it?
Olivier de Kersauson: Well, it was never at all clear to us that we would do it, and with the conditions we had, we've gone really quickly.

Q. What about those terrible six days in the South Atlantic when you said that it reminded you of last year?
R. Yes, that was a nightmare. But we never lost our motivation. There was, and still is, a terrific fighting spirit on board that was determined to see things through to the end. It's a bit like the discipline of fitting out the boat where you don't do things by halves. I don't think there was one second on this round-the-world trip when I really had to say anything at all. It gave me a great deal of pleasure just to see people concentrating on the task in hand, without feeling obliged to make some comment to get them refocused or back to work. There was, and still is, an individual commitment from every member of the crew, with each of them doing the maximum - and I mean the maximum - all the time. That's the truth. That's the fantastic thing about team sports - this association of men or women in which everyone gives their very best. These are happy times too, when everyone goes as far as humanly possible for the boat, to contribute to the collective effort and get home. That's far from commonplace; there's something sophisticated about it and it takes real guts.

Q. Olivier, thank you so much for your time. Thanks a lot and we can't wait to see you all again....