Philippe Jeantot

Philippe Jeantot born 8 May 1952 in Antananarivo Madagascar is a French former deep sea diver who achieved recognition as a sailor for longdistance singlehanded racing and recordsetting He founded the Vendée Globe a singlehanded roundtheworld nonstop yacht race Jeantot started his career as a deep sea diver working on oil rigs in 1977 he took part in the Janus IV dive of the COMEX during which Jacques Verpeaux and Gérard Vial broke the world record for deep diving at 501 metres 1644 ft He became interested in sailing after reading Bernard Moitessiers book The Long Way having learned to sail he built himself a 135metre 44 ft steel ketch planning to sail singlehanded around the world After cruising for two years he entered the first edition of the BOC Challenge now known as the Velux 5 Oceans Race in 1982 he won the race and broke the previous record for a singlehanded circumnavigation with a time of 159 days 2 hours In 1984 Jeantot entered the OSTAR sailing in a new catamaran Credit Agricole II He was forced to retire after a capsize but saved the boat and entered the 1984 QuebecSt Malo race in which he set a new 24hour speed record In 1985 he had success in the Grand Prix de Brest La Baule and Round Europe races In 1986 he again entered the BOC Challenge sailing Credit Agricole III and was again victorious In 1989 Jeantot founded a new singlehanded nonstop roundtheworld race the Vendée Globe He entered the race in Crédit Agricole IV and finished in fourth place In 1990 Jeantot once again entered the BOC Challenge sailing Crédit Agricole IV and finishing in third place thus completing his fourth solo circumnavigation of the world After the race he announced that he was retiring from sailing to manage his boatbuilding business In November 1990 Jeantot was given a suspended twoyear sentence and fined 15000 9900 for tax evasion Jeantot appealed but the verdict was upheld In 2006 Jeantot was charged with financial irregularities which alleged avoidance of corporation tax by his SailCom company forgery and the misuse of the company assets Forensic accountancy allegedly found that in excess of 1 million 660000 passed through an Irish account rather than SailComs bank in France SailCom was set up by Jeantot to run long distance competitive sailing races Source Article Philippe Jeantot from Wikipedia in English licensed under CCBYSA 30