At the beginning of the Volvo Ocean Race last November, the French yacht Groupama was a stray outlier. They were seen as a navigational risk-taker, an eccentric unwisely hugging the African coast toward Cape Town until all other boats blew by it from the mid-Atlantic route. At the end of the race in the wee hours of yesterday, Groupama was the champion. Completing a comeback from a deficit that once reached 28 points, the first French entrant since 1993-94 clinched the 2011-12 title when it crossed the line for Leg 9 second in Galway, Ireland, its overall lead insuperable with the 25 points for the runner-up spot in the final leg, even with the Galway in-port race of Saturday left to complete. “I didn’t think we could win,” an exultant skipper Franck Cammas said. When they did, at 4:49am UAE time, it marked the first Volvo win on the first Volvo try for Cammas, 39, previously a phenomenon in multihull sailing. It marked the first French win since Lionel Pean’s L’Esprit L’Equipe in 1985-86, and in the closest of the 11 editions of the Volvo race till date, it rewarded a team which did not win a leg until Leg 4. From the fourth stopover in Sanya, China, Groupama never finished lower than third in any leg, winning both Leg 4 to New Zealand and Leg 8 from Portugal to France, and finishing second in two other legs including Leg 7, in which it almost caught victorious Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing at Lisbon.