On October 29, dozens of skippers will embark on the Transat Jacques-Vabre race, including Thomas Coville, who has been with the Sodebo team for more than twenty years. For the Studio des Légendes with Jacques Vendroux, the sailor looks back this Saturday on his past races and the methods he has acquired over time to combine sleep and physical effort over a long period of time.
Unlike the Route du Rhum which is done alone, the Transat Jacques-Vabre takes place as a duo of sailors, which allows for more sleep time. “We’re definitely sleeping more. There, you can really have a shift routine. There are quite nice moments, when the guy sleeps well and you can hold on a little longer, you let him sleep. But here, we talk about an hour and a half or two hours”, specifies Thomas Coville, before sharing his solo experience. “I allow myself naps that never last more than 23 minutes. Because afterward, I fall into paradoxical sleep from which I have difficulty waking up,” he explains.
A relaxed body, but a brain still awake
Throughout his career, the sailor has managed to find the ideal system to withstand the harsh conditions of a race such as the Route du Rhum, or the Vendée Globe which also takes place solo. Allowing yourself to be carried away by naps that are too long can in fact be counterproductive and lead to more fatigue or a bad mood, according to the guest from Europe 1, “while 23 minutes is really the sequence where my body is rested, where muscularly, I have relaxed. The heart has returned to a heart rate of around 65 to 70 beats per minute. But on the other hand, the brain is still there, so I know if I went fast or not quickly when I wake up,” he concludes.
But sleep is not the only parameter to which skippers must make adjustments during a race. The ability to concentrate also differs, and one of Thomas Coville’s tips is affordable: turning on his radio to listen to jazz, which he particularly appreciates. For the latter, “jazz is a bit like our discipline, it’s in perpetual research, it’s never perfect”, finally describes the French skipper, who is preparing to put all these techniques into practice at the end of the month for the Transat Jacques-Vabre.