Boris Herrmann without allegations after a fishing boat collision

Dhe German circumnavigator Boris Herrmann spoke to the shipping company of the captain of the Spanish fishing boat with which he collided shortly before the destination of the Vendée Globe. “There are no accusations against the shipping company from our side,” said Herrmann at a press conference on Friday: “We can no longer fully clarify the situation, but that is no longer so important.” He was simply happy that everyone involved got away with the horror. In the collision about 90 miles from the finish line, both Herrmann and the crew of the fishing trawler – almost thirty meters long and eight wide, by the way – were uninjured.

After arriving in Les Sables-d’Olonne on Thursday, Herrmann had initially speculated that the fishing boat had not activated the automatic identification system AIS. “After the collision, I first said the obvious. Such situations have happened quite often, “Herrmann said on Friday. “But it’s okay that we had different points of view. The men on the boat were just doing their jobs. I don’t want to blame them. “

The fisherman Josu Zaldumbide had previously vehemently defended himself against Herrmann’s initial accusations in an interview with the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”: “He shouldn’t say that, damn it!”. The Basque assured him that the AIS was switched on “at all times” on his ship. He guarantees that. “Firstly, we are obliged to do so, and secondly, it can be checked very easily because: It is recorded automatically. Not to mention the fact that we always have a guard on duty, around the clock, ”said the 55-year-old.

“I don’t know whether he must have an AIS transmitter, or whether it was defective, or whether he was sleeping… I don’t know. But our AIS was on, ”said Zaldumbide. “Our ship got a few scratches. (…) A little bit of material is broken, we have damage to the paintwork and we had to tinker a bit in order to finish the catch, ”he said. The AIS did not report the sailing boat. He tried to reach the sea watch and, worried about Herrmann, to follow the yacht: “But we didn’t have a chance. It all happened very, very quickly. “

The environmental association WWF Germany has meanwhile confirmed that the AIS is often switched off illegally in fishing. “So the activities at sea can no longer be traced,” said WWF fisheries expert Philipp Kanstinger on Friday. This not only leads to an increase in the risk of accidents at sea, but also “that existing laws at sea are circumvented and the gates are opened to overfishing and illegal fishing practices”.

The incident in the Gulf of Gascogne, where there are many fishing boats, after more than 80 days of more or less accident-free voyage on the wild oceans, took Herrmann’s hope of even finishing the race as the winner. He had to slow down significantly. His alarm system against collisions on board, called Oscar, which is primarily designed for underwater obstacles such as flotsam or whales, worked, Herrmann said after arriving on Thursday. On that day, he said he had encounters with at least twenty boats. Every time his radar hit. He suspects that his radar system could have been blocked at the moment of the collision between two carbon fiber sails, the gennaker and the strong sail.

At its premiere at the Vendée Globe, Herrmann finished fifth despite the drama shortly before the finish line. After everything initially looked fourth, the man from Hamburg was ousted by Frenchman Jean Le Cam on his yacht “Yes We Cam!”. The 61-year-old Le Cam had just finished eighth in Les Sables-d’Olonne. But thanks to a time credit of 16:15 hours, he was still ahead of Herrmann in the overall classification. There the two separated after more than 80 days at sea and more than 28,000 nautical miles a mere 75 minutes.

Herrmann crossed the finish line in front of the French coastal town on Thursday with his yacht “Seaexplorer – Yacht Club de Monaco” as the fifth sailor. A time credit of six hours had also pushed him up to fourth place in the preliminary ranking. The French Yannick Bestaven, who arrived at the destination in third place with the “Maître CoQ IV”, secured the victory with a credit of more than ten 15 hours. Herrmann, Le Cam and Bestaven had received the credits from the race committee for their participation in the successful rescue mission for the shipwrecked Kevin Escoffier on the night of December 1st, 2020.

In the press conference Herrmann also reported on his first hours back on land: “It was just a bombastic day and I was very happy to see so many lovely people and the other skippers again.” In the evening he was still up after dinner fell asleep on the sofa and was only woken up in the morning by his little daughter. He wants to travel back to Hamburg at the weekend.

Meanwhile, Herrmann was proposed for the Federal Cross of Merit. Niels Annen, Minister of State in the Foreign Office, proposed an application to the Hamburg State Chancellery. Herrmann’s “outstanding sporting achievement and at the same time his social concerns” should be honored, said the SPD member of the Bundestag of the German press agency. First the “Hamburger Abendblatt” reported on Annen’s advance. The application must now be checked first. On his long voyage from his “Seaexplorer – Yacht Club de Monaco” with an on-board laboratory, Herrmann supplied extensive data to scientific institutions such as the Geomar Helmholtz Center for Ocean Research in Kiel and the Max Planck Institute.