Forty skippers will take part in the Vendée Globe 2024-2025, the 10th edition of this solo, non-stop and unassisted round-the-world race, which will start on November 10 in Les Sables-d’Olonne. Since its creation, the race has continued to attract sailors and the public is largely there.
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The idea came from Philippe Jeantot, a sailor himself. Objective: a solo round-the-world tour without stopovers and without assistance via the three capes (Good Hope, Leeuwin and Horn). With Jeantot, twelve other pioneers set off on November 26, 1989. Upon arrival, Titouan Lamazou wins over Loïck Peyron, who in the meantime had to save Philippe Poupon, when the latter’s boat went down. From its first edition, the Vendée Globe already tells a human story.
Serial dramas
The Vendée Globe takes place on IMOCAs, 18 meter long monohulls. The skippers leave from Les Sables-d’Olonne in Vendée and cover around 45,000 kilometers to return to the starting point. Very quickly, the race acquired international fame. During the nine editions, 200 competitors took part in the event and 114 of them managed to cross the finish line of the “Everest of the Seas”. A figure which alone expresses the extreme difficulty of this planetary event where the solitary are confronted with the freezing cold, the disproportionate waves and the heavy skies which sweep across the great south. The Vendée Globe has honored some very great sailors and Armel Le Cléac’h remains to this day the record holder for the event in 74 days. Only one sailor has won it twice: Michel Desjoyeaux, in 2001 and 2009.
If the Vendée Globe was a success for Michel Desjoyeaux, this race also experienced drama. The second edition is marked by two disappearances. Even before departure on November 22, 1992, Mike Plant disappeared at sea during the delivery to Les Sables-d’Olonne. Four days after leaving Vendée, Nigel Burgess was found drowned off the Bay of Biscay.
1996, the race becomes more feminine
On November 3, 1996, 15 solo sailors set off for the third edition which saw two women at the start for the first time with Isabelle Autissier and Catherine Chabaud. Only the second will finish their lap, Isabelle Autissier being forced to retire. The race lost Gerry Roufs, who disappeared at sea. The last message from the Canadian skipper, caught in a titanic storm, to the Vendée Globe race headquarters on January 7, 1997, was alarming: “ The waves are no longer waves, they are as high as the Alps. » The concern was such that, a few hours later, the Race PC asked Isabelle Autissier to turn back and try to find Gerry Roufs. The body of the 43-year-old sailor was never found, but pieces of the wreck of his sailboat were located a few months later in southern Chile.
In 2020, there will be 33 on the starting line. Upon entering the southern seas, Kevin Escoffier’s boat broke in two and sank. Four skippers (Jean Le Cam, Sébastien Simon, Boris Herrmann, Yannick Bestaven) are diverted to try to find and save him. After a night of searching, Jean Le Camthanks to his experience, will find the skipper in his life raft and take him aboard his Imoca. This time, the story ends well. Ironically, in 2009, Jean Le Cam was rescued by Vincent Riou after his boat capsized at Cape Horn.
2024, forty highly trained skippers
Beyond the competition, the Vendée Globe is above all an incredible human adventure. Every four years, the race keeps a large audience in suspense. Completing a trip around the world alone, without stopovers and without assistance remains an enormous challenge.
Thirty-five years after its creation, the Vendée Globe remains the “summit” of ocean racing, as Titouan Lamazou, its first winner, asserts. To validate their entry ticket for this 10th edition, the forty skippers have had to take the start of several transatlantic races over the last three years. The entire field is highly trained and the boats are more reliable than ever.
If the Vendée Globe has always been won by a Frenchman, three foreigners could well make history this time: the German Boris Herrmann and the British Sam Goodchild and Samantha Davies. Violette Dorange, 23 years old, is the youngest of the competitors, and one of the six women entered, an identical number to the previous edition. The first skippers to cross the finish line in 2025 are expected in mid-January.