Banque Populaire dropping ClaCla

[despacio avenue]

Actually both of them are in the Ocean race. 11th hr Alaka'i (which was Hugo Boss 2015) was sold and is now Guyot environment. 11th hour are on Malama (the newer one, built for them).

I assume Sebastien Simon will be aiming for the Vendee. Not sure if 11th hour plan to do it.

ERRATA!!! edited to add....Benjamin Dutreaux (not Seb Simon)bought Alaka'i (now Guyot) and is aiming at the Vendee

According to an interview with him in a recent Tip and Shaft, Sebastian Simon is still looking for and hopeful of getting a boat for the VG.

 

[Virgulino Ferreira]

Neue Zürcher Zeitung Swiss newspaper, founded 1780. Big article:

Segeln: Crémer wegen Mutterschaft von Sponsor fallen gelassen

Clarisse Crémer, die erfolgreichste Offshore-Seglerin Frankreichs, brachte im November eine Tochter zur Welt. Nun kündigte ihr ein gewichtiger Sponsor die Partnerschaft, weil ihre Qualifikation für die Vendée Globe 2024 gefährdet ist. Das ruft sogar die Sportministerin auf den Plan.

www.nzz.ch

Dropped for maternity: The case of sailor Clarisse Crémer makes high waves

Clarisse Crémer, France's most successful offshore sailor, gave birth to a daughter in November. Now a weighty sponsor terminated her partnership because her qualification for the Vendée Globe 2024 is in jeopardy. This even calls the sports minister to the scene.

(...)

Even the French sports minister got involved - and the bank's new CEO declared the case a top priority

In sailing, there have always been efforts to increase the proportion of women. The Ocean Race, for example, which is currently underway, has introduced a women's quota; there must be at least one female in every crew of four. And the next America's Cup will feature women's racing on the training boats.

Earlier efforts in the 1980s and 1990s, such as all-female crews at the America's Cup or in the Ocean Race, had been ridiculed. So it was then up to solo sailors such as Ellen MacArthur, Florence Arthaud and Isabelle Autissier to make their sport known to women as well.

Politicians have now also become involved in the Crémer affair. During the opening ceremony of the Alpine World Ski Championships in Courchevel and Méribel, French Sports Minister Amélie Oudéa-Castéra confirmed that she had exchanged views with all parties involved. "All parties are considering what they can do to find a positive solution for Clarisse. We have to make sure that motherhood is integrated into sailing and into the organization of this sport."

Meanwhile, Nicolas Namias, the new CEO of Banque Populaire, is said to have made the matter a top priority. He is said not to have liked the way a mother was sidelined.

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One observation: Every article I've seen with a picture shows a highly dignified Clarisse, or a straight up kick-ass Clarisse, as in this article. Excellent!

 

[Wess]

Obviously, not all has been related. And certainly, never will.

Clearly not. But it actually doesn’t matter. BP is getting destroyed in press and public relations for what is supposed to be a PR gain. There are steps they can take to minimize the loss or at least stop the bleeding but they ain’t even doing that. Which is the part I don’t get. That is one broken organization!!

 

[shebeen]

Oh and this is the current state of play re qualification (after the route du Rhum)..

News - Post-Route du Rhum: what about qualification for the Vendée Globe? - Vendée Globe - En

Nine days after the arrival of Thomas Ruyant, the winner of this 12th edition of the Route du Rhum - Destination Guadeloupe, the last competitor, Oliver Heer, crossed the…

www.vendeeglobe.org

Note: "All the projects that have validated a 2022 qualifying race will have to start a qualifying race in 2024, The Transat CIC or the New York Vendée - Les Sables d'Olonne to be qualified for the next Vendée Globe.

Projects that have not validated a qualifying race in 2022 will have to validate the 2023 qualifying race, the "Retour à la Base", the return race of the Transat Jacques Vabre, in solo."

SO Clarisse (or a substitute skipper) would have to do the Retour a la base this year and one of the two races next year.

so let me get this straight.
The plan was always for Clarisse (and many others) to do this race in november https://www.imoca.org/en/retour-a-la-base as their first qualifier?

She had a baby in november 22, got her boat in december 22 and early Feb they cut her out the friend circle.

Can't help but wonder what else happened, an entire year between the birth and the first race is plenty of time but this seems like both weird timing and very unplanned form the sailing team.

 

[Monkey]

so let me get this straight.
The plan was always for Clarisse (and many others) to do this race in november https://www.imoca.org/en/retour-a-la-base as their first qualifier?

She had a baby in november 22, got her boat in december 22 and early Feb they cut her out the friend circle.

Can't help but wonder what else happened, an entire year between the birth and the first race is plenty of time but this seems like both weird timing and very unplanned form the sailing team.

The only possible thing I can think of is that BP had some sort of performance clause in her contract that said she’d have X amount of qualifying miles by a certain date. Then some bean counter with the public relations skills of a wet mop, decided to enforce that clause and never realized the whole world would view it as getting fired for having a baby.

 

[timotheysski]

Flabbergastedness, but in French.








Yeah, yeah.... I know, it's not a word. But it should be though...

stu·pe·fac·tion
/ˌsto͞opəˈfakSH(ə)n/
noun
the state of being stupefied.
"salesmen stood in bored stupefaction"

 

[timotheysski]

There is a BP 12 IMOCA signed up for Fastnet this summer. Skipper - Erwan Steff. Is that the ex-Apivia boat?

Doesn't seem like anyone picked this up, but yes, that is their new boat (former Apivia). However, it will not provide you with much information as Erwan Steff is just a placeholder name: he's the logistics director for Team BP.

 

[SeQuBu]

Isn't it the purpose of the wild card to support a project not otherwise qualified that deserves it and would fall outside the qualification rules? Maybe they would need a couple of wild cards instead of one given the number of boats interested in starting, especially in an edition with some changes in the qualification criteria.

It is.
But VG is not willed to give her the Wild Card so early on as it would allow her to actually not having to compete in any of hte qualifications, and BP isn't willed to risk not being at the starting line.

 

[SeQuBu]

Clearly not. But it actually doesn’t matter. BP is getting destroyed in press and public relations for what is supposed to be a PR gain. There are steps they can take to minimize the loss or at least stop the bleeding but they ain’t even doing that. Which is the part I don’t get. That is one broken organization!!

But eventually, in a couple of months or even weeks no one will even remember that this ever happened while their boat potentially not being on the starting line of the VG has actual financial and wider PR impact for BP.

 

[timotheysski]

Quite honestly, Des is sounding more and more like an arrogant professor. Several of his comments in the last few years have been irritating me.
Maybe he never recovered from that devasting experience in the 1st leg of the 2014 Volvo Race,where he was beaten into DFL by... wait... The Girls.

View attachment 572529
Talking about body language!

More on that episode, and an amusing discussion about The Girls, here on SA:

VOR 2014-15 - Leg 1

Someone mentioned up-thread that AbuDhabi (sponsor) has to approve all content before it is released, this in addition to Volvo's approval = time consuming... FWIW - I don't think any of the other teams are any less focussed on winning, this is exactly the reason why they have the OBR - content...

forums.sailinganarchy.com

Well, surely we all understand why BP wouldn't want to engage in a program where they have a non-insignificant chance of wasting all their money to not race. While the bank could certainly stomach the costs, it's just business.
It's also true you don't change the rules for an event in progress. Now I'm pretty sure everyone would get their happy ending if an exception was made, but Vendée Globe and BP can do that under the table if they wish.
I do disagree with his last point: it's not valid to suddenly change skippers for "performance" reasons when you were well embarked on a new VG cycle.

Still don't see arrogance, here, looks to me like he's just giving this read on the situation which I'm sure many people share, but feel absolutely free to prove me wrong

 

[SeQuBu]

No other sport event that I know of requires the participants to absent themselves from proximity to medical care by thousands of miles and for periods of weeks during a qualification period and a contest for a place on the start line, of several years prior to an event. That requirement fundamentally disadvantages women of prime childbearing age, the very women who are the most likely to be able to compete at high level, the most likely to win and most likely to beat men in the event. Men, that is, the very sex that not only cannot bear children but need women to do it for them!
Nothing could be more fundamentally unfair against women than applying this same qualification requirement equally to disqualify women and to favour men when the facts are that pregnancy takes 9 months and most people consider it prudent during this period to have medical care available.
Who writes the rules? Men.
In the big projects who has the final say on the skipper selection? A man?

WOW, nice rant.

No other sport event that I know of requires the participants to absent themselves from proximity to medical care by thousands of miles and for periods of weeks during a qualification period and a contest for a place on the start line, of several years prior to an event.

Well, many events require qualification several years in advance and VG requiring the participants to be absent from proximity to medical care by thousands of miles and for periods of weeks is very much in line with the competition itself which will require them to be absent from direct medical care for thousands of miles and for months.
Your point here is similar if there was a race to the top of Mount Everest and you were complaining that the mountaineers would have to show that they successfully climbed a certain amount of +6.5k in a certain time frame to qualify for the competition.

That requirement fundamentally disadvantages women of prime childbearing age, the very women who are the most likely to be able to compete at high level, the most likely to win and most likely to beat men in the event.

No it doesn't. "Prime" child baring age for a woman is between her late teens to late 30's, that's 20 years. The event also doesn't forbid anyone to have children or say that if a woman has one they can't participate but it puts everyone in front of a choice for if and when they might want to have one; CC for example could have decided that racing this VG was really important and postponed having a child till after she finished the VG at which point she still would have been very well capable of having a child. Given, women are out of it forcefully for at least half a year, a man could be very much in the same situation if he wanted to spend that time with his children.
Though no a pro I took the decision to step away from offshore racing for the time being as I decided it was more important to spend the weekends with my little kids than to be on a boat for the time being.
This is like of you are training for years to become an Astronaut, decide to have a kid, and then get kicked out of the mission because you don't fully qualify anymore.

Nothing could be more fundamentally unfair against women than applying this same qualification requirement equally to disqualify women and to favour men.

And yet nothing could be FAIRAR than holding EVERYONE to the same qualification requirements, REGARDLESS of age or gender. VG has literally one of the fairest qualification requirements in any sport.

Who writes the rules? Men.

Actually, the rules are written and signed off by a committee of which the sailors are part of and the change that was introduced back in 2021 had nothing to do with motherhood but everything with the increasing number of participants and making sure that everyone who participates has a minimum level of experience.
BTW this is no different than other Pro/Am offshore races where a boat has to register a certain amount of NM to qualify.

 

[timotheysski]

Curious who she is talking about, Rosalin Kuiper? If so, seems to be holding her own and making her way as a pro sailor without the benefit of what amounts to a royal surname in offshore yacht racing…

Surely she is talking about Susann Beucke. Former Olympian with very little experience offshore (I reckon 2 years ago she had never spent a night offshore). She began training with the Solitaire du Figaro as her first major race. She finished, which at least indicates she is capable of sailing around solo in challenging conditions, but was DLF by a very long shot, like, over 100 miles on a 600-mile leg when everyone is within 20 miles of each other (save for one other guy who was about as far as her).
No prior IMOCA experience or even Class40 as far as I know. She has 55k followers on Instagram though...
I mean, good for her, but definitely thought it was odd when she was announced for Holcim-PRB (whoops, I said it).

 

[timotheysski]

Clearly not. But it actually doesn’t matter. BP is getting destroyed in press and public relations for what is supposed to be a PR gain. There are steps they can take to minimize the loss or at least stop the bleeding but they ain’t even doing that. Which is the part I don’t get. That is one broken organization!!

Come on, it is a French bank! Our companies and government organizations are famous for having the reactivity and speed of a snail.

 

[Wess]

But eventually, in a couple of months or even weeks no one will even remember that this ever happened while their boat potentially not being on the starting line of the VG has actual financial and wider PR impact for BP.

Man I hope you are a paid corporate shrill for BP because I didn't think anyone could be this out of touch!

 

[Virgulino Ferreira]

🤦‍♂️

 

[Mambo Kings]

Clearly not. But it actually doesn’t matter. BP is getting destroyed in press and public relations for what is supposed to be a PR gain. There are steps they can take to minimize the loss or at least stop the bleeding but they ain’t even doing that. Which is the part I don’t get. That is one broken organization!!

Lots of people. None of them any good.

If you think the sailing PR is less than mediocre, wait until you meet their risk officers.

 

[eliboat]

Surely she is talking about Susann Beucke. Former Olympian with very little experience offshore (I reckon 2 years ago she had never spent a night offshore). She began training with the Solitaire du Figaro as her first major race. She finished, which at least indicates she is capable of sailing around solo in challenging conditions, but was DLF by a very long shot, like, over 100 miles on a 600-mile leg when everyone is within 20 miles of each other (save for one other guy who was about as far as her).
No prior IMOCA experience or even Class40 as far as I know. She has 55k followers on Instagram though...
I mean, good for her, but definitely thought it was odd when she was announced for Holcim-PRB (whoops, I said it).

Ok thanks. Still seems like sour grapes to me, and it’s funny to me that she lacks the self awareness to understand that her position is based entirely on who her father was. Would she have gotten to sail on Geronimo without her last name? Would she be sailing Pen Duick now without her last name? Does she truly believe people are as interested in her as a sailor rather than the piece of maritime history that’s she’s sailing around?

While Beucke is certainly attractive, she has also accomplished on her own what only an infinitesimally small group manage to do, and that is win a silver medal at the Olympics, along . Sure she may not have all her offshore chops yet, but my guess is that she’ll be plenty good by the end of the race. Way to support the cause by shitting on a fellow woman for being born good looking!

 

[Mambo Kings]

Well, surely we all understand why BP wouldn't want to engage in a program where they have a non-insignificant chance of wasting all their money to not race.

The money is supposed to generate an ROI based on positive PR and positive growth in accounts.
If ditching a Mom merely in order to race, leads to negative PR, declining retail accounts and declining profits.......then the "waste" is pursuing a strategy with a very-significant chance of wasting all their money.

While the bank could certainly stomach the costs,

Not sure I agree,

1) BP is a co-operative where the philosophy is to provide low cost banking services to the people. The cost advantage was meant to be about , not having to pay a profit to shareholders and not having a bloated, overpaid public company board. So, the elephant in the room is...Why are the Banques Populaire's even involved in high end yacht racing sponsorship in the first place?
The answer is that BPCE does have a ritzy(ineffectual) board, and what is the point of being on a ritzy board if you cant do prestigious things like throw parties at L'orient and Paris for the yacht you spnsor.

2) The bank is woefully unprofitable, fails to deliver on its mission and needs new management who have the mensch to take a sharp blade to its bloated cost structure.

So , no they cant afford the bad PR and frankly they cant afford the bad program in the first place.

 

[Mambo Kings]

If you want any further evidence of the bureaucracy and incompetence that reigns at BP, just look at how long this has been allowed to go on for. Every day its gets worse for them, and it was easy to fix.

Step 1: Roll out the ole French "I am shocked, shocked that this was allowed to happen"

https://media.tenor.com/pJnatjvzCsoAAAAd/casablanca-shocked.gif

Step 2: Reinstate Clarisse

Step 3 Fire head of sponsorship, even though he was not to blame.

In a week, we would find something else .


But letting in drag on and on and on like this because you have committees and task forces and lawyers and board members with political connections is just so BP.

 

[symbio2]

Ok thanks. Still seems like sour grapes to me, and it’s funny to me that she lacks the self awareness to understand that her position is based entirely on who her father was. Would she have gotten to sail on Geronimo without her last name? Would she be sailing Pen Duick now without her last name? Does she truly believe people are as interested in her as a sailor rather than the piece of maritime history that’s she’s sailing around?

Marie Tabarly speaks on behalf of others women. The point is to raise that the most competent womens don't get jobs, while clearly less competent ones get due to a purely surperficial reason... Yes, feninism is a very intricate cause.