REPORTAGE “I, an ordinary sailor, have been to the temple of world ocean sailing”

There are once-in-a-lifetime experiences worth having. If you are a fan of sailing, of ocean sailing, witnessing the start of the Vendèe Globe , the solo round-the-world race on IMOCA 60s with no stopovers or assistance that, every four years, starts and finishes in Les Sables D’Olonne, France, is one of them. Hundreds of thousands of people in a sailing frenzy, the world’s ocean sailing elite to take a selfie with, incredible boats, the air smelling of salt, of celebration, of sailing. You will understand this well by reading this fine story/report that sailor Leonardo Servi (many of you will know him as the owner of lucky and winning boats with which he has taken great satisfaction on the race courses, such as winning the 151 Miglia) wrote for us. Happy reading! Then, you just have to follow the Vendèe Globe with the Sailing Newspaper!

All We Need Is Vendèe Globe

Ocean races have a unique appeal, perhaps difficult to understand for those who are not fans of offshore racing. The most famous ones are solo or double, and the skippers who participate have the most diverse stories behind them, from glacial sportsmen to romantic dreamers, from super pro teams to family teams. However, all are prepared and focused on reaching the goal, for some it is victory, for others it is the end.

Everyone has passed qualifications and background checks in order to be judged fit for these borderline challenges. They all look like superheroes, but the moment they leave the docks, emotions take over in a variety of ways, from pulled faces to tears that are difficult to hold back to uncontrollable crying.

These mind-boggling moments remain inside every spectator, and to be able to experience them live is a fortune that one must be able to appreciate. Everything else happens after that, the race, the sports result or the personal achievement, but one thing is certain: the feats these men and women put up are of such magnitude that they are worth a lifetime.

The emotions felt in the days leading up to the start are contagious, and I make no secret of the fact that having visited the villages of two Transat Jacques Vabre and one Route du Rhum in recent years, one of the things that has stayed with me deep inside, in addition to the technical value of the race, is precisely the emotional and life-choice value that permeates the air one breathes.

Contaminated by the Italian ocean wave

The starting ports of these events are a kind of Holy Grail for enthusiasts, this is my first Vendèe, there are only Imoca, in the other regattas we have found ports with all oceanic classes moored: Class 40, Imoca, Multi 50, maxi trimarans Ultime, up to the most disparate hulls. For example, at the Rhum Route there is the Rhum class, an open class more or less to all hulls that have certain safety requirements: old Open, Class 40, Trimarans and monohulls that are more or less dated but often part of the history of these ocean classics.

I accompanied Ciccio Manzoli to the start of three of his four Ostars (1996, 2000 and 2005) then nothing more until 2021. The arrival of new Italians such as Pedote, Beccaria, Riva, Bona, Fornaro and Pietro Luciani, whom I know well, made me not want to miss these opportunities anymore and to be there to breathe that air that is so good for body and soul (less so for the liver)!

In pursuit of perfection

To get to be ready for a start there is years of preparation in pursuit of perfection. A perfection that must apply to navigation as well as to life on board, fundamental to mental balance. A difficult equation, however, that can make the difference between finishing and retiring, between placing and winning. An equation that has seen in recent projects put a lot of value on the skipper’s living conditions on board.

A skipper with an “easier to carry” or more livable boat perhaps has an equal chance of winning than one who slaughters himself to perhaps bring the boat up to 80 to 90 percent of its performance because it is too physically demanding.

I hope I can be on that dam at Les Sables d’Olonne encouraging the skippers as they exit the channel, like thousands of fans we have only seen on TV until now, maybe with those beautiful banners with phrases like:

ALL WE NEED IS GLOBE

Planning for the trip then began in September with the search for accommodation. Eventually we found a house not far from the very exit channel. Just spread the word a little and I immediately filled the 6 available beds. Also fixed plane to Nantes and then a car to get to Les Sables. All that remains is to wait for the departure date.

The dream of witnessing the departure of the Vendèe Globe

Nov. 7 – A bit of labor due to strikes at the Nantes airport we finally manage to arrive at midnight. My traveling companions are all insiders and this promotes contact with the teams, it is a little

like being in the pits, you enjoy the sight of their work, their expertise, and maybe you even get to ride in a few boats. (Group photo) The start looks like the best,

time to leave the suitcase in the house we rented and we go to a party organized by Team Malizia, friends, skippers and their teams, good music and that’s it. We pull a little late also because being past midnight we were able to toast (several times) my birthday, even even with Alex Thomson (see photo below) and Guillame Verdier!

Nov. 8- In the morning we are at the village to get our passes which fortunately give us direct access to the docks. One piece of good news is that I have been granted requests to follow the start: -A seat at the skippers’ arrival dock -Journey by dinghy in the channel as the boats leave -Start to follow at sea on a passenger boat. We exit the Media Center and with disbelief the queue of the public appears before us, lined up to get to the “Vendèe” dock, funneled into an impressive snake that is no less than a kilometer.

Heading toward the wharf we arrive. just as the skippers’ meeting for the departing weather has just ended.

We find them busy with journalists giving interviews, nice to be there and be able to photograph them up close. Some are in a hurry, others serenely indulge reporters, however few of them return to the boats, if ve go to homes or hotels where rightly with two days to go they take refuge to find concentration and time for weather analysis.

Boats facing the round-the-world voyage

We head back to the pontoon and begin our tour. The boats are all moored at the “Vendèe Globe” pontoon, and the stream of people walking along it is impressive.

We study them one by one with the accompanying group made up of sailmakers, boatbuilders and equipment managers. I take pictures of every detail which then in reality maybe I will never need but maybe some tricks will later come to the “normal” boats as well.

The strongest curiosity concerns the two most recent projects: the two boats without foils project Raison for Le Cam(Tout Commence in Finistère) and Bellion (Stand As One), and the new foilers by Finot-Conq in collaboration with Antoine Koch for Richomme (Arkea Paprec) and Ruyant (Vulnerable).

The other great boat is Macif, a Verdier project that does not have a twin among the starters. We visit Hublot with Alain Roura who, always available, is preparing for his 3rd round-the-world race; he is the former Boss of Thomson with whom the Swiss skipper has already done the Vendèe 2020 also sponsored by Hublot.

The day ends first at the village bar where teams drink well-deserved beer and then continues at a club with music and cocktails where teams mentally break away from the busy days. The toasts for my birthday continue and with its 24 hours of celebration, it is certainly the longest birthday ever!

The eve

Nov. 9 – Morning starting late due to culinary difficulties… joking aside very difficult to eat in Les Sables, from breakfast to dinner all establishments are taken by storm and food soon becomes scarce. We then end up with the record of not being able to eat even a much-coveted pain au chocolat. As soon as we enter the village we go to get instructions for the day of departure and to pick up

the “wristbands” assigned to access the various areas. On Saturdays the pontoons are closed to the general public and only with wristbands can be accessed, the atmosphere is different, after a new tour of the pontoons, and a stop at the media center with

meal provided by sponsor Sodebo, we arrive in the afternoon where the teams, with only a few hours of daylight left, begin to prepare for Sunday’s outing. The sponsors’ “sails” are taken down and the real sails are prepared for the start, check of mainsails, jibs and a lot of material traffic coming off the boats and leaving in vans or containers.

Parterre de Roi

The day before departure is also the day to visit the teams of great figures in this “circus,” and on the tour between boats we have the opportunity to cross paths with and “stalk” Desjoueaux, Caudrelier, Coville, Richomme, Le Cleac’h and Le Cam.

Hardcore fan behavior aside, one understands the atmosphere different, you begin to feel that tension that only an event prepared for four years can cause. As darkness comes, the boats are all ready, the teams’ dinghies tied to the 60-footers ready to pull them off the dock and then begin what,

the next day, it would be before departure, the “remonte du chenal” that enters the heart of anyone who participates or attends as a spectator. On the return to the docks the crowds are hallucinating, despite the closed docks the large audience is packed into the village and the cocktail hour is a peak hour where teams and audiences mingle with fans of all ages. Families, the elderly, children playing and artists painting pictures on site to be autographed by the skippers.

They breathe sailing from an early age, school groups visited every day alternating visits on board with games together with the village mascot or in the stands of sponsors who proudly present their products or projects but in a very engaging way that for children.

An outdoor dinner with take-out pizza in the usual impossibility of finding a seat at a restaurant and then warming up nicely with gin and tonics. Around 1:30 a.m. on the bike on the way home we already came across some people sitting on the docks along the canal, the idea that they were fishermen was immediately supplanted by the certainty that instead they were already fans preparing to spend the night there for

Take a front row seat to enjoy the show.

Here we go!

Nov. 10 – Alarm clock rings at 5:40 a.m. The media center has been open since 5 a.m. offering hot coffee and assistance.

The first skipper to come down the pier to embark is Dalin at 7:25, interviews with press and TV and then the presentation of the “voice” of the Vendèe Globe who introduces him to the public amid cheers and applause. They all parade and 40 we enjoy their expressions, some more serene, some more serious, some reacting with empathy to the cheers, some colder. Nice to be there and to have been able to savor these moments, but we have to leave the area before they finish parading because we have an exit on the raft at 9:30. We know it will be perhaps the most exciting part of our Vendèe outing, and in fact every expectation is surpassed by the intensity of the experience.

Hundreds of thousands of supporters are crowded on every possible spot that will allow them to see the boats go by, from chairs and deckchairs for those first in line to ladders and trestles for those who arrived later but equipped to keep a clear view. My camera can’t stop swinging between one side of the channel and the other, you hear the shouts and trumpets blowing, then you frame the skipper thanking and cheering the crowd, they respond then turn to the other side and the show continues.

What moments, what excitement. Some skippers, especially those on their first Vendèe seem incredulous, they put their hands in their hair, they don’t believe what they see, or if they had seen it before it seems nothing like experiencing it in person, they scream and play for it and from the first videos that participants have posted on their socials, it certainly looks like they will carry that moment inside them not only during the regatta but for their entire lives.

Vendèe Globe: a unique experience

After returning with the dinghy we run to the dock from which the boat that will take us to the starting line will depart. It is good to be there but the spectacle is not the most compelling. You can see the boats starting but a bit far away, everything that had been a “front row” show so far has become more disappointing, the wind is lacking and they struggle to stretch after the start. It’s all stop and go based on the little gusts that come in. A spectacle worthy of our Mediterranean. Finally after a couple of hours the expected wind from land arrives and the positions shuffle, those who were more on land start first and catch up, the Imoca stretch fast and our boat can finally get closer, we appreciate the speeds even if modest and the wakes recede until we have to reverse course to return to port. We catch up with fellow sailors and relive together the emotions, the joy of having been there, somehow participating in a unique event. Each skipper organized his own Vendèe Globe according to his own possibilities,

from stellar budgets to union minimums in order to participate, each skipper is fulfilling his or her own challenge with himself or herself or life’s dream.

Every skipper needs that ride.

All You Need is Globe. All We Need is Globe.

Leonardo Servi

Follow the Vendèe Globe with us!

Follow the Vendèe Globe with the Sailing Newspaper! In the section“The Vendèe Globe Newspaper” you will find all the updated news about the race, while on our Youtube channel, every Wednesday at 6:30 p.m.,“The Vendèe Globe Trial” (in collaboration with Raymarine, Antal and Gottifredi Maffioli) goes live, where our experts, along with a parterre de roi of great sailing guests, comment on the great adventure of the solo round-the-world race