After 76 days alone at sea, the two skippers arrived back in Les Sables D'Olonnes on Sunday January 26, finishing within six miles of each other.
Arriving in eighth place Mettraux (38) was the first female sailor to complete the 2024-25 race (knocking an amazing 11 days off the previous time for a female skipper) and also the first non-French entrant to finish. Goodchild (35) crossed the line 25 minutes later to become the second ‘international’ finisher.
Both were first time competitors in the singlehanded non-stop around-the-world race and neither were sailing one of the latest-generation IMOCA 60 race boats that filled the top seven places in this latest edition of the classic open ocean race.
During their respective laps of the planet the British and Swiss sailors each endured their own breakages and setbacks pretty much in equal measure. Mettraux blew up her J0 headsail early on and had to improvise with other less efficient sail combinations for the rest of the race. For his part, Goodchild had to remedy technical problems with his autopilot and rudder early in the race. Then, three days before Christmas and while deep in the Southern Ocean he woke up to find his J-0 was in the water but was able to successfully retrieve it intact.
Both suffered major mainsail damage in the closing stage of the race. Agonisingly for Goodchild a high speed spin out while surfing down an eight-metre wave in the mid-Atlantic in 50+ knots of wind tore his main from leech to luff. After a lot of time and effort he was able to glue the sail back together (not an easy procedure on the floor of a sail loft and a remarkable feat to carry out on the rolling deck of a boat still surfing in big seas) but the time he lost dropped him from battling for fourth with France’s Jérémie Beyou back to ninth behind Mettraux.
As the pair approached the French coast Mettraux also destroyed her mainsail, but despite having to reef it down to its minimum area she was able to hold off her fast charging British rival as the duo arrived back in France.
The achievements of these two remarkable sailors in racing around the world single handed for the first time, dealing with loneliness, and surviving prolonged periods of truly heinous weather – all while chronicling their adventure on video for the race's huge and insatiable social media audience – are on their own enough to earn them elite role model status.
But beyond all of that, what really sets this pair apart is the incredible focus, determination, and mental fortitude they have both consistently demonstrated over their entire careers.
Both sailors have stepping-stoned their way closer and closer to their first Vendée Globe through a series of ocean racing campaigns over the last decade. Taking their opportunities when they came each step along the way added compound interest to their skill and experience banks. Above all, they never took their eyes off the main prize.
I recall first meeting Goodchild for the first time at the start of the 2012-13 Vendée Globe. Back then he was a quiet, baby-faced, twenty-something who was working as a préparateur for Alex Thomson’s Hugo Boss campaign.
“I am going to have my own campaign one day,” he told me. There was no cockiness, just quiet assured confidence. Even though we had only chatted for a few minutes I 100 per cent believed that he would one day get there.
Since then I have followed his career assiduously as he ran his own Class 40, IMOCA (famously with Netflix show Narcos as a sponsor), and Ocean Fifty campaigns – and as crew aboard Thomas Coville's 100-foot around-the-world Ultim 'Sodebo'. I have interviewed him multiple times along the way (including on the Yacht Racing Life Podcast) and I have never been anything but impressed with how forthright and honest his persona has remained.
Predictably, when interviewed the day after he finished his first Vendée Globe he was no different.
“The objective is definitely filled,” he said. “I came here to finish the Vendée Globe and to enjoy it while I did it. That’s done and I am happy about that. Of course, there is a little bit of frustration about coming so close to a top five position and not managing it.”
His answer to a question about what his immediate thoughts had been when he saw the catastrophic damage to his mainsail might well come straight out of the Role Model’s Handbook.
“What went through my head immediately was that the Vendée Globe had changed. I never really thought that I would have to drop out because I knew I would get the boat to the finish line one way or another. I wasn’t sure how or when or whether I was going to be Robinson Crusoe eating dried fish for the next three weeks. But I was going to make it to the finish line that was for sure.
“Then when I dropped the main I started to think well there’s a jury repair I can make here that will get me to the finish line a bit quicker. I had gone from fifth place and breathing down the neck of fourth to now I don’t have a mainsail. I knew then it was going to be about damage limitation and a bit more of an adventure to get to the finish. A change of scenario but [you] never give up.”
A final snippet from that interview is a piece of wisdom that anyone with a passion for sailboat racing at any level would do well to heed – and perfectly evidences what a healthy sense of perspective Goodchild maintains.
“We’re just sailing boats in a race and it’s not the end of the world if it doesn’t go according to plan.”
Coming as she dies from a five-sibling family of sailing over-achievers, it is easy to believe that Justin Mettraux – or Ju-Ju as she is affectionately known – was in some way irrevocably destined to one day become one of the world’s top 10 ocean racing skippers.
“I really didn’t ever plan to become a Vendée Globe skipper, because I grew up in Switzerland and the VG seemed to be pretty unreachable from the life I had there,” Mettraux said just prior to the start of the Vendée Globe.
Despite growing up far from the sea in landlocked Switzerland – where she learned to sail on Lake Geneva and went on to rack up an impressive racing results scorecard – she somehow found her way into ocean racing by way of the Mini Class and in 2013 finished second in the Series class in the Mini Transat on her first attempt.
Mettraux first raced around the world as part of the all-women crew of the Swedish-flagged Team SCA entry in the 2014-15 Volvo Ocean Race and went on to win the fully-crewed race twice: with Dongfeng Race Team in 2017-18 and then with 11th Hour Racing Team in the 2022-23 edition of The Ocean Race.
Backing her back on her first Mini Transat was the Geneva-based international business consulting group TeamWork – the same company Mettraux works with today and which was the main sponsor of her Vendée Globe campaign which saw her purchase Beyou’s 2018-generation Charal for her first tilt at racing around the world solo.
As she arrived back in Les Sables D’Olonnes after two-and-a-half months alone at sea Mettraux held up a hand made placard on which she had written “Thanks to my team”. It was a heartwarming gesture from an individual athlete who recognises that she is nothing without the support of the team she has built around herself.
“The Vendée Globe is demanding,” she said after finishing. “At some point, you don’t really know what you're doing anymore. But it's a great satisfaction to have managed to bring the boat back and to have done it with an amazing team.”
Mettraux was typically open and honest in her summing up of her first Vendée Globe experience. “I think I really enjoyed it – the descent of the Atlantic and the Southern Ocean was incredible. I was pretty comfortable. The return, the climb up the Atlantic, wasn’t that easy up until the finish line, even up until today. It was a real battle to get across the line.”
Goodchild and Mettraux have both proved themselves not only as talented sailors and fierce competitors with bright futures ahead, but also as inspirational role models. All of us – young and old – can learn something from their remarkable achievements and I encourage everyone to dive deeper into their stories. You will be glad you did.
Justin Chisholm
