A scratch on the nose, courtesy of a wayward drone propeller, was the only thing marking Paul Meilhat's face as he stepped ashore on Thursday. Everything else about him said triumph.
"I'm not very good at catching them," he admitted, before breaking into the broad smile of a skipper who knows his crew has just done something special.
Meilhat and his United by the Ocean team have now won The Ocean Race Atlantic, adding to last year's victory in The Ocean Race Europe with Biotherm. Two wins in two summers, on the same boat. But talk to him for more than a minute and it's clear neither result is really the point.
"For me, it's not really about the result itself, but about how we achieved it," Meilhat said. "I'd rather remember all the good moments and think about how we can recreate them in the future."
Everything, he says, is building towards next January and the start of The Ocean Race around the world.
The crew he's assembled has become central to that story. Sara Stone, an experienced big-boat sailor, joined during the delivery leg and impressed Meilhat with how quickly she adapted.
"She was discovering this slightly unusual world and adapted very quickly. She sailed really well and had all the right instincts," he said. "And, above all, she's always in a great mood. That's incredibly important on a boat."
Mariana Lobato and Benjamin Ferré, both already known to Meilhat, rounded out a team he feels has taken "another step forward together".
The boat itself, the former Biotherm, is not the newest design on the water, and that showed during a rough night three days from the finish, battling a heavy swell and an ugly cross sea.
"In big seas, it's not particularly quick," Meilhat said. "But in flat water, with medium to strong winds, the boat is very fast. And fortunately, a lot of races are ultimately won in those conditions."
Two wins from two different races doesn't mean he's found the formula for winning the big one. Far from it, he says.
"We've won two races, but they were two very different races. The Ocean Race around the world will be a completely different challenge," Meilhat said. "I approach it like a coach in a team sport. I'm constantly thinking about what we need to put in place if we want to win."
Ask him for the secret and he pauses.
"I think one of the keys is to think differently," he said. "The Ocean Race Europe and The Ocean Race Atlantic are new races, so we're all figuring out how best to approach them, how to race them and, ultimately, how to win them."
He's done two Vendée Globes solo and has already ruled out a third. Crewed racing, with its shifting strategy and constant problem-solving, is what holds his interest now.
The two newest boats in the fleet, DMG MORI Global One and Team Malizia, finished behind United by the Ocean and 11th Hour Racing, both older-generation designs. Meilhat isn't reading too much into it.
"I don't think we should read too much into it yet. That's going to change," he said. "We saw that the new boats have enormous potential. I think they'll finish far more races ahead of us than behind us."
He was full of praise for what those teams have managed in such a short window.
"They managed to cross the Atlantic twice just a few weeks after launching the boats," he said. "When you know how difficult it is to get these boats fully reliable, to complete a transatlantic race in conditions like those is seriously impressive."
United by the Ocean is also something of an experiment off the water. Meilhat has built a sponsorship model that brings several companies together under one banner, with an international crew to match, including Lobato's Portuguese and Stone's American connections.
"We want to bring together people from all backgrounds and from all over the world," he said. "Ultimately, we'd like to have a crew made up of several different nationalities."
Funding hasn't come easily these past months, and getting the boat launched in time was, in his words, complicated.
"Everyone worked harder than ever, despite some very tight deadlines," Meilhat said. "But when we arrived in New York, everyone had a smile on their face again. Going there is something that affects everyone. And now we've won the race, which makes it even better."
"That's offshore racing," he added. "You spend the winter getting your hands dirty, dealing with glue, dust and everything else and working incredibly hard. Then the reward is spending the summer racing and sailing as much as you possibly can. That's what I love about it."
