Managing Director of Team Spirit Racing, the structure set up in 2021 by Paprec and Arkéa to support Yoann Richomme’s Imoca project, Romain Ménard takes stock of the Vendée Globe campaign, which finished on the second step of the podium, and looks ahead to what’s next.
Ten days after the finish, is the team decompressing or still in action?
After being on cloud nine for two or three days, you’re quickly caught up by reality. Personally, I got home at 11.30pm on Thursday, and the next day I had an appointment with the accountant to close the books! But now we’re trying not to let the dust settle, because it’s been a great time, and as we’re lucky enough to have a project signed until the end of 2025, we’re already thinking about the next objectives.
What do you remember about this campaign, which in the end was rather short?
I don’t know if “short” is the right adjective, but I’d say it was very dense and clearly a successful campaign, which is something to be congratulated on. All in all, I’m proud to have been able to put together this project from scratch to achieve this result, but also to have never given up on a race in two years. It’s great to see that Yoann – and Yann (Eliès) when he was with him – always managed to bring the boat back safely. Every time you finish a race, even a difficult one, you learn a lot, which has been an important element in our progression curve and has given Yoann the confidence to pull on the boat during the Vendée Globe.
If you had to give advice to a team about launching a Vendée Globe project, where would you advise them to start?
The best place to start is to be lucky enough to have sponsors with a real vision and, above all, an awareness of the need to make the right decisions at the right time. This has clearly been the case for us throughout this campaign. The key to a project like this is really timing. Then, of course, there’s team building, which isn’t an easy task because you have to find the right people and instill a corporate culture, something I’d probably underestimated a little. You know that the team is called Team Spirit, it’s not the world of Care Bears, everything hasn’t always been easy, but in the end I think we’ve succeeded in creating that team spirit. That’s another thing that struck me last week: people were congratuling me saying “Well done for coming second!”, and the next day they were coming back and saying “You’ve got a great team with a great spirit”. And that means so much to me.
“Zero regrets”
Apart from timing and team spirit, what are the other ingredients for success?
That’s a question I’ve been asking myself for a week now. Sometimes I tell myself that it’s all down to nothing at all. Two weeks ago, Holcim PRB tore off its masthead, and that happened to us during the penultimate sail before the start of the Vendée Globe! Now, there’s obviously hard work and talent involved, as well as the fact of being super-organized and vigilant about the schedule, but also the need to have a common thread, which I think has been one of our strengths. We had some structural problems on the boat during this campaign, but we never panicked, and we managed them with a cool head, because we had the issues well in mind. And, of course, you need the sailor, who is the key man. For our part, when we set out to find a skipper, we wanted someone who had already won, and on this campaign, it clearly helped mentally to have a skipper who had confidence in himself, maturity, great technical know-how and leadership ability. Yoann was a perfect fit for the project, with a human touch and a kind of sixth sense with people that is astonishing. He was a driving force in building the team.
Despite this, you finished second, not first. Where’s the 22-hour gap between Charlie Dalin and Yoann?
I’ve been wondering about that for a week now too! Without getting my brain in knots, because Charlie’s victory is well deserved, and everyone’s in their rightful place. Now, is it before the start or during the race? I don’t know, we’ll talk about it during the debriefing we’re all going to do together, but frankly, given our experience and where we started from, I don’t think we could have done any better. I have no regrets, on the contrary, I’m really pleased, especially for Paprec and Arkéa. Three years ago, we said we were going to restore their image, so that they could rediscover the pleasure of a sailing project after their first complicated experience. Today, we can say that the contract has been fulfilled, and this second place is a great reward for them.
Moving on, what’s on the agenda?
First of all, we’ll continue to celebrate, then we’ll go into refit mode to get the boat back into shape, even if the job list is very limited, and finally we’ll please our sponsors with some sailing in June. Then it’s time to get back into the busy racing season, with the Fastnet in July, The Ocean Race Europe in August and the Transat Café L’Or in October.
“Our boat for sale at the end of 2025”
Why The Ocean Race Europe?
It was an opportunity we seized because it met several criteria. There are several of us on the team who are well experienced on the Imoca circuit, so we wanted a bit of a change. Secondly, Yoann has always said he likes the crewed format, so it was nice for him to get back into it, especially after a Vendée Globe year in which he did nothing but single-handed racing. Finally, given the Paprec Group’s international growth, particularly in Europe, it was a good opportunity to offer them a race to match, with a stopover in Cartagena, Spain, which is a big market for them. Now we’re going to do it the sensible way: we already have the skipper and his partner for the Transat Café L’Or, and we want to sail part of the team, so we only need to recruit one more person, which won’t cost too much.
You’re talking about pairing up for the Transat Café L’Or. Is the choice already made? Will it be Yann Eliès again?
Things have been finalized and signed before the start of the Vendée, but it’s too early to say.
Looking further ahead, are you on track for the Vendée Globe 2028?
Yes, clearly, it would be a malpractice not to present the future deadlines to the sponsors, which we have done. I think they’ve all responded separately, and Paprec has confirmed its desire to continue. We still need to do some debriefings to see how we’re getting organized.
Arkéa seems more uncertain, with a possible withdrawal from cycling in particular. Do you have any guarantees that they wish to continue?
That’s up to them to answer, I don’t have any more information on the subject than you do, and just because they’re pulling out of cycling – which I don’t know – doesn’t mean they’ll do the same in sailing.
Is a new boat necessarily required for the Vendée Globe 2028? Where do you stand on the subject?
Yes, that’s our conviction, so here again, we’re on the right track, both in terms of the architects and the shipyard. We’re ready to launch everything as soon as we get the go from our partners, but I can’t tell you any more today! However, I can tell you that our current boat will be put up for sale at the end of 2025.
Do you intend to take part in The Ocean Race in 2027?
It’s attractive, but after that, there’s clearly a question of costs, the investment is significant, which can range from 1 to 4 million euros more, so today, it’s not on our agenda.
Photo: Jean-Marie Liot / Alea
