The World’s Toughest Sailing Race Starts Soon

 

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The World’s Toughest Sailing Race Starts Soon

In November, the seaside town of Les Sables-d’Olonne in the Vendée will see some of the world’s greatest sailors setting off solo on the non-stop, round-the-world race known as the Vendée Globe. Find out why it’s an unmissable event in France’s sporting calendar.

Head out by boat from the harbour at Les Sables-d’Olonne and, for the next 3,000 miles, it’s ocean all the way to North America. Before European sailors discovered the New World in the 1400s, this stretch of French coastline now the Vendée department must have felt like the edge of the world.

Nowadays, Les Sables-d’Olonne is the starting and finishing point of arguably the world’s toughest sailing race: the Vendée Globe. The next edition begins on November 10 this year, with thousands of spectators expected to be quayside to see off the roster of 40 sailors who have qualified. When all the competitors line up in the harbour, ready to sail around the planet, solo and non-stop, they really will feel like they’re on the edge of the world.

© VENDÉ E GLOBE / ALEA / J.L. CARLI, , DPPI / O. BLANCHET, B. LEBARS

Staged once every four years, this is the most famous race in a discipline known as single-handed ocean sailing. Navigating open ocean for months all alone, each competitor must circumnavigate the planet west to east, first rounding the southern tip of Africa, then Australia, New Zealand and the southern tip of South America, before returning to France. They are allowed to stop at anchor but not at dry land and cannot accept outside assistance of any kind. They must do all navigation and repairs themselves. Not only must they be technically brilliant, but they must also endure months of solitude, vicious storms and possible shipwreck. Of the 198 sailors who have entered the race so far, only 114 have managed to cross the finish line.

© VENDÉ E GLOBE / ALEA / J.L. CARLI, , DPPI / O. BLANCHET, B. LEBARS

A most gruelling ordeal

The race usually covers around 24,000 nautical miles (44,000km), depending on the course each sailor follows. The problem is that weather, currents and erroneous navigation can send each one on all sorts of tangents. After leaving Les Sables-d’Olonne, they head south past Portugal, Madeira and the Canary Islands towards the coast of West Africa. Once past the Equator and its doldrums, they hit the Roaring Forties, the Furious Fifties and then the Southern Ocean, where icebergs occasionally lurk. At one point, sailors can find themselves more than 1,600 miles from the nearest land, where, remarkably, the only humans more remote from civilisation are astronauts in the International Space Station. Canadian author Derek Lundy wrote a best-selling book about the 1996/1997 Vendée Globe called Godforsaken Sea: Racing the World’s Most Dangerous Waters. In it, he described the ordeals faced by competitors: “[…] icebergs, hurricane-force winds, waves the height of six-storey buildings, deafening noise as their boats surf the giant waves. And all this whilst suffering up on a small island where he lived on seaweed until he was rescued. Over the years there have been all sorts of other mishaps, including capsizing, a broken leg, and a broken keel caused by a passing whale. Very occasionally, an unfortunate sailor never makes it home at all. During the 1990s, when safety regulations were less rigorous and technology less advanced, tragically, three sailors perished while competing in the race.

© VENDÉ E GLOBE / ALEA / J.L. CARLI, , DPPI / O. BLANCHET, B. LEBARS

The loneliness of the open seas

Samantha Davies is a British sailor about to compete in her fourth Vendée Globe. Originally from Portsmouth and now living in Brittany, she explains how lonely life is out on the open. ocean. “There are long periods of solitude because you’re out there on your own for three months. You spend Christmas and the New Year on your own. That’s when you imagine your friends and family having parties.” Coincidentally, Samantha’s partner, Romain Attanasio, is also competing in this year’s race – on his own boat of course. Samantha says the food she and her fellow competitors consume during the long voyage is understandably fairly basic – mainly rather tasteless freeze-dried fare. “Fresh food is something you crave,” she adds. “You can wrap apples and oranges in aluminium foil and keep them going for three weeks, but after that there’s no fresh food. I once took some mustard and cress seeds to germinate, so I could make salad.” On the odd occasion, fresh fish especially flying fish-might end up on the deck of the boat, which makes for an impromptu change of cuisine. “Road kill,” is how Samantha refers to it.

The other challenge is lack of sleep. Autopilot and radar technology allows sailors to snatch a few hours’ sleep here and there. However, after months at sea and with icebergs, whales and other vessels to look out for, exhaustion inevitably kicks in. But all this suffering is worth it for the sailors who finally make it back to Les Sables-d’Olonne, 24,000 nautical miles later. This year’s winner will take home €200,000 in prize money. Perhaps the last word should go to Jean-Luc Denéchau, president of the French Sailing Federation. He explains how the Vendée Globe the Everest of the seas’, as he calls it is one of his sport’s four blue riband events, alongside the America’s Cup, the Ocean Race and the Olympic sailing events. “When it comes to this event, all superlatives apply,” he says, “whether that’s the adventure, the sporting achievement, or the 10 physical demands and technical skills required. The 2024 edition will be no exception. It promises to be exciting, both on a sporting and a human level.”

The 2024-2025 Vendée Globe starts in Les Sables-d’Olonne on November 10.

Find out more at www.vendéeglobe.org

© VENDÉ E GLOBE / ALEA / J.L. CARLI, , DPPI / O. BLANCHET, B. LEBARS

VENDÉE GLOBE ESSENTIALS

How to attend the start

The Vendée Globe is scheduled to start on November 10 this year, with the action focused around the Vendée Globe village in Les Sables-d’Olonne.

More information and tickets are available through www.vendeeglobe.org

GETTING THERE

BY SEA

Why not join in the nautical theme and travel to France by sea? Brittany Ferries cross from Portsmouth or Plymouth to Saint-Malo and from Plymouth to Roscoff, both of which are close by car.

BY AIR

Nantes-Atlantique airport serves London Gatwick, Birmingham and Bristol (with easyJet) and Edinburgh, London Stansted and Manchester (with Ryanair) www.nantes.aeroport.fr.

BY TRAIN

Take the TGV from Paris- Montparnasse to Nantes and then it’s a 1h20m TER train ride to Les Sables-d’Olonne.

TOURIST INFO

www.in-vendee.com

www.lessablesdolonne- tourisme.com

From France Today Magazine

Lead photo credit : The start of the Vendée Globe in 2020, © VENDÉ E GLOBE / ALEA / J.L. CARLI, , DPPI / O. BLANCHET, B. LEBARS

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