Defending champion Yannick Bestaven led a flotilla of 40 yachts into the Atlantic Ocean on Sunday as the 10th edition of the solo, non-stop round-the-world Vendée Globe race got under way.
Tens of thousands of people lined the docks of Sables-d’Olonne to wave goodbye to the 40 intrepid sailors.
The gruelling race, dubbed the “Everest of the Seas”, is held every four years. Bestaven won the last edition in 2021, completing the 24,300 nautical mile-course (45,000 kilometres) in three hours and 44 minutes.
All 40 skippers starting this tenth edition hope to outsail their opponents and pocket the 200,000-euro winner's cheque.
"I'm in great shape,” said Bestaven. “The weather conditions are pretty good.”
But he was in no doubt about what lay ahead.
"There's always a bit of stress. You never know how things are going to turn out. It's a new story to write. Of course there's the stress of saying goodbye to our life on land, to all our friends and family, but there's also the stress of the departure itself."
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First-timers
British skipper Sam Davies is one of six women on the race, each of them looking to emulate Ellen MacArthur who remains the only woman ever to make the Vendée podium when she came second in 2000-01.
Fifteen skippers are making their Vendee debuts, including Violette Dorange who, at 23, is the youngest in the race.
"This is my first challenge on such a massive scale, it’s a journey into the unknown for me – I’ve never experienced the Southern Ocean or the Doldrums,” she told Reuters.
The Frenchwoman began sailing as a seven-year-old in La Rochelle and crossed the English Channel in a tiny Optimist dinghy aged 15. The crossing took her 15 hours, but gave her “a real taste for the open sea”.
“I want to finish this adventure. That’s the only thing that matters,” she said.
Yoann Richomme, winner of the Solitaire du Figaro in 2016 and 2019 and the Route du Rhum in the Class 40 category in 2018 and 2022, is embarking on his first Vendée Globe.
“The hardest thing will be solitude, I’m not a solitary person at heart,” he told RFI. "I'll need to keep myself occupied, so I’ve brought along plenty of reading material and podcasts.”
Other neophytes include 35-year-old Jingkun Xu, who only saw the sea for the first time at the age of 12 and is now the first Chinese sailor to take on the Vendee Globe Globe.
'Everest' of the seas
The race started life in 1989, set up by French yachtsman Philippe Jeantot. Of the 13 boats that started only seven finished with another Frenchman Titouan Lamazou winnings in 109 days.
Every navigator is well aware of the risks involved in the solo race.
One skipper, Nigel Burgess, died in the second edition in 1992-93; Mike Plant perished while crossing the Atlantic to reach the French start point for that race.
Four years later the Canadian Gerry Roufs disappeared, his boat turning up on the coast of Chile six months later.
And four years ago Kevin Escoffier came within a whisker of joining them when his boat snapped in two. He was lucky, picked up by veteran Jean Le Cam who at 64 will be the oldest of this year's competitors.
The French influence remains as strong as ever with the race still waiting its first “foreign” winner.
(with newswires)
