Vendée Globe - the Everest of the Seas
42 years ago, Francis Chichester sailed the Laurent Giles ketch Gipsy Moth IV round the world single-handed, challenging the times taken by clipper ships in their heyday. Having asked Jack to design him a fast boat, he then complained that she was not easy to handle. Friends of mine who were ardent supporters of the low-budget effort by Alec Rose in Lively Lady (which suffered delays and started a year later) remarked sarcastically that Chichester’s main goal was to get away from the red trouser suit his wife wore when she saw him off.
In 1968, Robin Knox-Johnston set off on the first non-stop singlehanded circumnavigation, in the ketch Suhaili.
All these ground-breaking English yachtsmen treated their projects as tests of seamanship. Even Chichester, who set out to match the speeds of bigger, fully-crewed ships, would not have dreamed of pushing his boat as hard as he could at night.
How things have changed in 40 years. Today, Sunday 9 November 2008, 30 single-handed sailors set off from Les Sables d’Olonne in state-of-the-art Open 60 class boats, ready to drive them hard day and night, through storms that would have caused skippers to heave-to not that many years ago. The first Vendée Globe races were still survival affairs, in spite of the speeds at which they were sailed. Lives were lost, and boats were severely damaged. The third race, over the winter of 2000-2001, saw new boat design rules with stringent safety and survival features, and competitors had to undergo survival training. No more skippers were lost, but there were dismastings and other failures.
For 2008, the boat design rules have been modified slightly in the light of experience from earlier races, and to take advantage of new technology. Expect this year’s boats to be faster, and to be sailed even harder.
Surprisingly, although the French have fielded several very competent women in earlier years, the only two women competing this time are both British - Dee Caffari and Sam Davies. In this race, the boats are sent out of port at intervals according to their position on the pontoon, and Dee was chosen to be the first. No sure which I’d prefer - hanging around on the pontoon, or hanging around outside waiting for the start.
Short audio interviews with the skippers showed them all feeling a bit twitchy, longing to be away from the emotion of the last hours on the pontoons and getting down to the rhythm of the race itself. They’ll have a few hours to do that before they get hit by a deep depression as they cross the Bay of Biscay…
Good luck! Bon voyage!
For more information on this race, go to vendeeglobe.org
For a notorious pirate from Les Sables d’Olonne, go to François l’Olonnais
Update: Mike Golding in Ecover was over the line at the start, and seemed to take quite a while to recognise the fact and return. Defending champion Vincent Riou in PRB led for the first half hour, then Seb Josse in BT took over. Dee Caffari started very well on Riou’s hip, but couldn’t maintain the pace. Sam Davies chose to sail a lower course than most of the fleet.
Baots are carrying full main at the moment, but winds will stregthne overnoght - perhaps reaching over 40knots by morning. Typical Biscay, and a tough start to the race.
Update: 15:05 Dominic Wavre notified race committee that he is returning. Can’t charge his batteries. He hopes to get the problem fixed quickly and rejoin the race…
Update: Dominic Wavre’s support team have diagnosed the cause of his electrical problems to be a fault in the computer which controls the charging functions. They hope to have received and installed a spare in time for him to leave on tonight’s tide a little after 11 p.m.
As he commented earlier, returning was an easy decision. By the early hours, in a rising gale, he would have had no electrical power at all - in particular, no autopilot.