To date, the Vendée Globe is the only sailing race round the world, solo, non-stop and without assistance. The event followed in the wake of the Golden Globe which had initiated the first circumnavigation of this type via the three capes (Good Hope, Leeuwin and Horn) in 1968. Only one out of the nine pioneers who had set off in 1968 succeeded in returning to Falmouth, the major port of British Cornwall. On 6th April 1969, after 313 days at sea, British sailor Robin Knox-Johnston finally reached his goal. Twenty years later, after having won the BOC Challenge twice(solo round the world with stopovers), navigator Philippe Jeantot introduced the idea of a new race around the world, but..non-stop! The Vendée Globe race was born. On 26th November 1989, thirteen sailors took the start of the first edition which lasted over three months. Only seven returned to Les Sables d'Olonne.

The eight editions of what is now called the Everest of the seas by the public have enabled 167 contenders to take the start of this extraordinary race. Only 89 of them managed to cross the finish line. This figure alone shows the extreme difficulty of this global event in which solo racers are confronted to freezing cold, gigantic waves and heavy skies which sweep the Great South! The Vendée Globe is first and foremost a journey beyond the seas and deep down oneself… It has rewarded great sailors :TitouanLamazou in 1990, Alain Gautier in 1993, Christophe Auguin in 1997, Vincent Riou in 2005, François Gabart in 2013 and Armel LeCléac'h in 2017. The skipper from Finistère became the new record holder of the race in 74 days. Only one sailor has won it twice : Michel Desjoyeaux, in 2001 and 2009. The 9thVendée Globe will leave Les Sables d'Olonne on Sunday 8thNovember 2020.

40 075 kilometers, 21 638 miles: that is the circumference of the Earth and the distance of reference around the world. A revolution accomplished in 74 days and 3 hours during the last edition of the Vendée Globe. This planetary voyage is firstly a climatic journey to sail down the Atlantic, cross the Indian and Pacific oceans, then sail back up the Atlantic... To be expected: a start from les Sables d'Olonne in mid-autumn, a trip in the heart of the Southern seas in full austral summer and a wintery return to Vendée.Cyclism

In reality, during the previous eight editions of the Vendée Globe, most competitors sometimes sailed over 28 000 miles (about 52 000 kilometers). The solo racers have to deal with the wind, waves, swell and ice. The trajectories of the boats are thus a chain of broken lines, zigzags, detours and changes in courses.

A CLIMATIC TRIO

The Vendée Globe solo racers must permanently tamper with the weather systems. These are made of anticyclones - rather stable and moderately windy high pressure zones – and depressions, usually generating strong winds. This confrontation between high and low pressures determines the strategy to adopt in each zone of the course of the Vendée Globe. The North-South trajectory to go down the Atlantic and the South-North way back up are perpendicular to the general movement of perturbations whereas crossing the Indian and Pacific in the Southern seas is done in the same direction as the weather systems.

During the first phase between Les Sables d'Olonne and the cape of Good Hope, at the tip of South Africa, solo racers must sail along the anticyclone of the Açores in the North Atlantic, followed by its equivalent of Saint Helen in the austral part. The game consists in finding the good balance : far enough from low pressure centers to avoid the strongest winds without getting stuck in the high pressures. The second phase consists in taking advantage of the weather phenomena coming from the West so as to be pushed rapidly between Good Hope and the Horn. The third phase looks like the first one with the anticyclones of Saint Helen and of the Açores to be avoided. It's also necessary to manage the passing from one hemisphere to the other : it's the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ), commonly called the Doldrums. At this place, hot and humid air masses brought by trade winds of the two hemispheres meet and generate unstable air where white calm and stormy squalls alternate without any logic. Vigilance and intuition are indispensable to escape this trap.

ATLANTIC PARTS

On 8thNovember 2020, starting day, two situations are possible : if the anticyclone of the Açores stretches out to the West of Europe, getting out of the Gulf of Biscay will take place in manageable conditions. On the contrary, Atlantic depressions which rush in between Newfoundland and Spain could generate strong and adverse winds. This beginning of race between LesSables d'Olonne and the tip of Finistère could be achieved very quickly in one short day or prove to be a difficult start... Once past the Portuguese coasts, the fleet will slide toward the Cape Verde : contenders must be careful not to endure perturbations off the islands (Madeira, Canarias, Cape Verde), nor take the risk of being trapped in the calm of the anticyclone of the Açores... This critical moment actually impacts the future point of entry in the Doldrums, generally between the 27° and 30° West parallel. The point of entry also determines the point of exit : North-Easterly winds turn to South-Easterly ones on the other side of the ecuator ! The closer the trajectory to Africa, the shorter the route to go around the anticyclone of Saint Helen...

The high pressures of the South Atlantic are fickle at the end of the austral spring : the goal of the solo racers is thus to sail along the Brazilian coasts as offshore as possible and catch one of the depressions which appear in the bay of Rio and die in the Indian ocean! If the high pressure system breaks up into ephemeral and mobile cells, the fleet ends up scattered in small groups with very different weather conditions : the split is often critical...

CATCHING THE TRAIN IN THE GREAT SOUTH

In less than a month, the frost of Vendée makes way for equatorial heats, tropical rainshowers and then subantartic polar cold. The Southern seas, which represent almost 3/5th of a round-the-world, offer a chain of depressions originating from Brazil, Madagascar, New Zealand… Solo racers must preserve this train of downwind conditions, sliding from one perturbation to another without being absorbed by anticyclonic tentacles. Powerful North-Westerly winds, fronts with violent Westerly squalls, switchover to South-Westerly freeze, the sequence is very trying for the sailors as well as the machines..

To limit the risk of encounters with icebergs, the Race Direction establishes a zone prohibited to sailing, the Antartic Exclusion Zone (AEZ), which goes around the Antartic between the 45°S on the Crozet Islands side and the 68°S off Cape Horn. Consequently, this demarcation for safety imposes a rather Northerly trajectory which flirts with the anticyclone of the Mascareignes (Indian) and Easter Island (Pacific). Competitors can get caught in high pressure systems while their opponents are surfing on a depression !

THE LONG WAY HOME

If rounding Cape Horn after 50 days at sea reduces drastically the stress of breakage and marks the increase in temperatures, the 7 000 miles left to sail to reach the Sables d'Olonne aren't the simplest ones, especially if other competitors are right behind you! Once you've passed Patagonia, there is still the anticyclone of Saint Helen to avoid while negotiating stormy depressions coming from Brasil. Adverse and irregular breezes, important wind shifts, fronts to cross, far from being an easy ride...

Once the Brazilian coasts are more or less within sight, the Doldrums loom at the horizon before reaching the trade winds of the North hemisphere. Once again, racers must avoid getting trapped in the fearsome calm of the anticyclone of the Açores in order to finally reach the Atlantic depressions which can be more devastating than their austral equivalentsin January... After 70 to 75 days at sea, the winner of the Vendée Globe 2020 will finally be able to see the Nouch buoy which marks the finish line of the Vendée Globe in Les Sables d'Olonne.