“I want to tell people that dreams are possible. Perhaps my dream will unleash other dreams.”
“Great dreams never come off first time. I tried, I failed, I fell, I picked myself up again, I rebuilt myself.”
So said Frenchman Thomas Coville who has just smashed the round-the-world unassisted solo sailing record, at his sixth attempt, by an extraordinary eight days. It was evidently a highly risky venture given the huge size of his Sodebo Ultim trimaran – a 31-metre long and 21-metre wide craft equipped with a 35-metre high mast carrying up to 680 square metres of sail area.
“Nothing else in the world resembles this exercise. It requires total focus. It’s severe and extremely violent and that’s what’s so magnificent about it,” said another sailor. “With a multi-hull, if you get it wrong, you’re dead.”
Surviving winds of up to 45 knots, he described his boat as like “a dragonfly” skating on the water. The risk of capsizing meant he could sleep for no more than 30 minutes at a stretch during the 49 day voyage.
Born 10 May 1968 7.35am Rennes, France, he’s a stalwart and practical Sun Taurus which is opposition Neptune square Jupiter opposition his Midheaven – a Fixed Grand Cross, giving him formidable stamina and obstinacy. His Mars in early Gemini is also tied into that Grand Cross.
His Sun is also trine the breaking-barriers Uranus Pluto in Virgo. His Saturn in self-reliant Aries conjunct the go-solo North Node in Aries opposes his Libra Moon in the 5th.
Unsurprisingly his ‘obsessive dream’ 11th Harmonic is marked; as is his incredible-endurance 16H; and his strength and stubbornness in the face of difficulties 8H. His get-it-together 5H has an entrepreneurial Fire Grand Trine, focussed in a Kite by a ruthlessly determined Pluto opposition Mars.
An inspiration in a world obsessed either with flim flam or inflicting carnage.
larryc, Thomas Coville is the opposite of Abby Sunderland and her 2 unsuccessful media-driven attempts to set records.
Her rescue was costly, and she and her family didn’t throw in a plug nickel. She even wanted the public to pay for raising her boat from the depths of the ocean, after she scuttled it. Meanwhile, she had a TV deal, a movie deal, a book deal.
She’s taking flying lessons so she can be another Amelia Earhart, only, you know, the kind that gets rescued.
I’m reminded of Abby Sunderland, the 16-yr old teen who attempted being the youngest to circumnavigate the globe in 2010 (?). She survived but her boat lost its mast during a storm.