Old sea dog, funny, competitor … The thousand faces of King Jean Le Cam

Old sea dog, adventurer, troublemaker of the seas … For as long as he has been sailing, that is to say about 45 years, Jean le Cam has seen many labels more or less in keeping with his personality. By saving Kevin Escoffier at the crossroads of the Atlantic and Indian oceans on the night of Monday to Tuesday, the Breton adds one more to his collection, that of savior. A nod to the history of the Vendée Globe to which no one has failed to allude: eleven years earlier it was he, who, curled up in a dry corner of his boat overturned off Cape Horn, had been rescued by PRB. At the time, Vincent Riou, defending champion, was in the driver’s seat.

“It was much more under control from start to finish,” recounts the 2004-2005 Vendée Globe winner. That is to say, there was a period when we had Jean inside the boat without knowing in what state of health he was. From the moment we knew how to signal ourselves correctly and we knew that he was fine, well… The situation was not simple but much less hazardous than what it could have been on Monday evening. ”

The precarious nature of Escoffier’s situation for half a day in the south marked the fleet as much, drawing tears to Clarisse Cremer and prompting Thomas Rouillard to be cautious on board his weakened foiler, as the rescue fascinated on the ground. The skipper on PRB and his companion in misfortune have thus chained no less than 30 French and foreign TVs in a media marathon which ended in a zoom with Emmanuel Macron, assumed fan of Le Cam, on Tuesday evening. Dialogue chosen between a president and his rockstar.

– People need simple things that reassure, this kind of thing is part of the real values ​​I think.

– I think so too. We are very proud of what you have done. (…) I can tell you that it makes me feel good too. (…) Go to the end, Jean!

– Yes we Cam !

Neither God nor master

The improbable exchange, the result of an initiative from the Elysée Palace, was secretly coordinated by the organization of the race and then Anne Le Cam, Jean’s wife, who is delighted without getting any glory.

“It was really funny. I’m a bit like Jean on this, I’m not going to fall from the clouds even if he’s the President of the Republic. But it was really cool that there was recognition for two amazing people in the truest sense of the word. ”

The speech sticks with the idea she has of her husband, a man whose merit is, she says, to speak in the same way to President Macron as to the gardener. “There is no god, only human beings. The Cam only has high esteem for the seas and oceans of the Globe, which he knows he is at the mercy of every time he sets off on a round-the-world trip on his sailboat. “It’s not for nothing that he offers a Chateau-Thénac to Neptune and not Préfontaine,” laughs Anne, who nevertheless refrains from intellectualizing her relationship to the sea. “It’s his life, it’s his work is his tool. Oceans and seas are part of his profession. He knows that he doesn’t have a poetic relationship with the sea. Sometimes he’s amazed, he thinks it’s beautiful but he’s not going to overdo it. ”

Jean Le Cam is a navigator on a human scale. The one who, within the Vendée Globe fleet, knows best how to stay close to his followers on land thanks to an original sense of storytelling. In addition to the drawings by Emmanuel Guivarc’h, which have accompanied him since the 2016 edition, King John takes advantage of a certain level of confidence in front of the camera. “He doesn’t like to write, he doesn’t draw, so he only has that left,” comments Anne. Oral is his means of communication. I think people are sensitive to the fact that he’s like an Audiard character, he has a voice and he doesn’t play. “We are still tempted to believe that a minimum of staging is hidden behind his best running-gags, like that of his stuffed animals on board, or, as he prefers to call them,“ his stowaways ”.

If his numbers often hit the mark, they are not unanimous. Double Vendée Globe winner, Michel Desjoyeaux grew up in the light of the tandem formed by his big brother Hubert, who died in 2011, and Jean Le Cam. “They did the 400 shots together, but I was the little behind because I was younger. I have sailed with them a little bit, but not a lot, not enough. We read sailing magazines, we read Tabarly books. Of course, having big brothers who do that influences you… ”Today, he does not always live well to see one of his childhood models fall into the uneasy.

“Cuddly toys, there are people who laughed at, me not at all, I did not understand what he was playing. He had fun with it. If it had made anyone laugh maybe he would have adapted. It turns out that it made a lot of people laugh. Some said to me “Jean Le Cam, he’s wonderful”, others answered “no, but wait, he’s pathetic”. There I don’t know if it’s the age of reason or the reason of age, but he really seems to be having fun. He is an endearing person no matter what. ”

A competitor in 4L

Popularity has its virtues, especially at the helm of a project a little different from that of other skippers (four sponsors contribute equally with the right to communicate as they wish around “Yes We Cam”), but also a few defaults. By constantly putting the human in the center of the village, we perhaps too often forget the athlete. The winners nevertheless command respect: three solo sailors from the Figaro, a Jacques Vabre, a Barcelona World Race and a 2nd place in the Vendée Globe. Vincent Riou:

“The Cam is pure talent. It always has been and always will be. He was annoyed at the start because we had put him in the adventurers ‘hut, in the old sea dogs’ hut, when in the end not at all. Even if he sails with an old boat, he had prepared his race like a competitor by optimizing it, by giving up nothing on the athlete, on the technique. I think he was happy to show everyone that he is still there. ”

Desjoyeaux is no less complimentary when it comes to talking about the sailor. “He has a style, Jean, in the way of preparing. When we were sailing in Figaro, he was almost the last to go in the water at the start of the season, but his boat was perfect. I think what he’s doing here is remarkable. I wasn’t always very kind to what he did. But it is clear that he is very good at what he does at the moment. ”

Before the Escoffier operation, Le Cam was still against all expectations at the gates of the podium behind the latest generation foilers that it compares to Ferraris, as opposed to its 4L. An effective analogy that has the gift of highlighting its merits as much as the bankruptcy of hyper sophisticated machines. Anne Le Cam, launched in a pamphlet against the expensive projects that she invites to refer to the America’s Cup, does not however want us to fall into the caricature of the old bitter anti-modernist.

“Jean was the first to ride hydrofoils, he knows them by heart, the foils. It is not the young people who will tell him that he is in the rear. He was the first to make very fast boats. He was Formula 40 champion, you had to see what it was. He’s been a multihull, he knows what it is, but he also knows what the sea is. He knows what the Indian Ocean is, four to five meters deep, mean seas, hard and brittle, he knows all that. Just as he knows when he can throw himself headlong into a low pressure system off the Iberian coast. At the start of the race, he was also surprised to see his young competitors getting around the obstacle. His wife continues:

“The first depression they all avoided by saying ‘oh, help mom’, they say it themselves. Nobody was there except the two old Alex Thomson and Jean… At that moment he was stunned, he said “wait but guys, how are they going to do in the south? ”

“He was crying because he couldn’t find Kevin anymore”

The old man is badly placed to understand young people stressed out on the high seas. Those who know him as Desjoyeaux portray a relaxed and frugal skipper in his race choices, never having to maneuver too much on a round the world. Kevin Escoffier’s shipwreck forced him to step out of his comfort zone and, in this unfolding human drama, he was not always at ease. “When Jean was looking for Kevin,” says Anne, “he called me. He was crying because he couldn’t find him anymore. ”

It is difficult to escape the cliché when it is offered to you: behind the character who is sometimes austere, sometimes funny so appreciated by the general public, hides a great melancholy “able to cry in front of a film”, a tough guy but certainly not a tough guy. short. “He doesn’t know how to say it, he’s awkward with his feelings and his emotions, he doesn’t necessarily know how to talk about it, but he’s very tender and sensitive. »One more label for Jean Le Cam. Soon we won’t know where to stick them.