It is tough enough for any sailor just to complete the non-stop round-the-world Vendee Globe, let alone win it but winning it while battling cancer, as French skipper Charlie Dalin did in January, is another kind of toughness altogether.
The 41-year-old, whose book “The Power of Destiny” (“La Force du Destin”) is published on Thursday, has revealed to AFP that he was suffering from a rare form of gastrointestinal cancer as he steered his boat Macif to victory in a record 64 days.
“It certainly made the task a little more complicated to have this ‘intruder’ on board,” Dalin told AFP.
“Today I see it as a double victory, in the race and, above all, in everything that has happened to me.”
Dalin, who had finished second in his only previous Vendee in 2020-21, was diagnosed with a gastrointestinal stromal tumour (GIST) in autumn 2023, just a few days before the start of the Transat Jacques Vabre race.
He had to pull out of that race to undergo drug treatment but after several months he was able to head back to sea.
“If the doctors had had any doubts, I wouldn’t have gone,” he says.
“I wouldn’t have taken any risks with my wife and son. Sailing is my job, and they were happy for me to get back out on the water.”
Dalin chose not to share the news of his illness publicly, for fear it might scupper his plans to take part in his second Vendee Globe, a gruelling race that is followed avidly in France.
A few days before Macif left Les Sables-d’Olonne in north-west France at the head of the flotilla last November, a new scan had shown the tumour had not grown.
“The illness also made me put things into perspective,” he says.
“Just being able to set sail was already a victory. People often say that but in my case it has never been so true.”
Once clear of land, and taking his daily medication, his seafaring instincts took over.
In spite of the constant fatigue, Dalin passed the Cape of Good Hope in the lead and gambled on confronting a storm in the Indian Ocean which threatened to smash his boat to matchsticks. Most of his competitors went around it, taking a longer route.
“I stuck to my strategy, sleeping an average of six and half hours per 24 hours, which is more than on my first Vendee,” he said.
“There were no distractions on board, so I used every free moment to sleep.
“I had stomach pains, but I just told myself: you don’t have time to worry about that. The pains went away as quickly as they had come.
“By the time I got back to shore, I had almost forgotten about them.”
When he crossed the line in January, the champagne corks popped in celebration but just a few weeks later, he went under the knife.
“The date of the operation would have been much the same if I hadn’t left,” says Dalin, who hopes that telling his story will give hope to other cancer sufferers.
“If it helps people going through this kind of thing, even just four people, that would be great,”
He said he recognises that for the time being at least his sailing career is on hold.
“Today, the disease is stable. I’ve lost a lot of weight and am no longer able to compete in offshore races.
“The next Vendee Globe is not possible in my case but I’m hopeful that I will return one day, perhaps on transatlantic races.”
AFP
AFP
