The Vendee: Sport's ultimate test

By Stuart Alexander

Friday, 7 November 2008

Share
Close
- Digg
- del.icio.us
- Facebook
- Reddit
- Google
- Stumble Upon
- Fark
- Newsvine
Print
Email

One of the 30 competitors, Jonny Malbon

More pictures

Everything has come big this year for the longest and toughest event in world sport, the Vendee Globe singlehanded non-stop round the world sailing race. At 30 boats it is the biggest fleet ever assembled, and at 20 this is the greatest ever number of new Open 60s. With seven (plus one) it boasts the highest ever number of British competitors.

The traditional course, down the Atlantic, round Antarctica and back up the Atlantic keeps the 28 men and two women on the track, 24 hours a day, seven days a week for about three months. It is punishing beyond anything demanded by a Tour de France or Dakar Rally.

Less than 60 people have ever completed the Vendee Globe at a time when others can now take weekend trips to either the north or south pole or up Mount Everest. It is a different matter when you are hundreds of miles from anyone other than a fellow competitor, swinging around at the top of a mast making a repair, or exhaustedly trying to drag 100 kilos of wet sails across a bucking deck during a change.

Two things are agreed by all; that the race is very open and could be won by anything up to 15 of the competitors; that not all 30 will finish.

That is not to say that everyone is expecting death as well as destruction, though two have died over the years - Nigel Burgess in 1992 and Gerry Roufs in 1996-7 - and Mike Plant was lost on his way to the race in 1992. It is that not all the boats will make it all the way round. The punishment being handed to the human bodies is more than matched by the pounding that these increasingly powerful 60-foot racing machines are expected to endure.

The two women are both British, Dee Caffari with a new boat, Aviva, and Sam Davies with the 2,000-vintage Roxy. Caffari has a dual target of a good place overall and sailing singlehanded the "right" way non-stop round the world to bookend her achievement in sailing alone the wrong way round the world non-stop.

She has a new tee-shirt with an instruction from her shore crew which reads "no right turn", just in case she were to forget. Even to be on the same pontoon as the high-octane line-up of singlehanded ocean racing talent is "a privilege. To be here and accepted is the biggest thing."

Davies is a bright, articulate Cambridge graduate who just seems to enjoy solo sailing. She hopes to be back with a new boat in 2008, but these are not the best times to ask for sponsorship packages which work out at about £5m over a four year cycle.

Just ask Steve White, whose 10-year old boat has cost him multiple mortgages on his home, though not the support of his wife and family. That is an important factor also to Mike Golding, who must be wondering if his time has come. In 2000 his Ecover was dismasted just eight hours after the start, he replaced it in a week, and came seventh after a storming display in the Southern Ocean.

He was third last time, despite losing his keel hours from the finish and has also seen rivals in trouble. It was Golding who rescued Alex Thomson from a stricken Hugo Boss in the Velux 5 Oceans Race and then was dismasted on the way to Cape Town.

Thomson was dismasted and badly holed just three weeks before the start but £250,000 of repairs carried out by up to 40 people has seen him make the start line, if in uncharacteristically apprehensive state.

Michel Desjoyeaux, who won the race in 2000 in which Ellen MacArthur's second catapulted he onto national chat show sofas, says that it is one of the Brits, Brian Thompson, who has the most powerful. Designed by one of the most radical naval architects in the game, the Argentinian Juan Kouyoumdjian, Pindar, now partnered with the Kingdom of Bahrain, is still waiting to find out.

The yacht has had to recover from two dismastings, the second of which prevented Thompson and Will Oxley from competing in the Transat Jacques Vabre to Brazil last year. It is 25 per cent heavier than its lightest rival and power reaching should give it a significant advantage - as would any upwind work. "I have to keep pace, outpace when I can, but not break the boat," he says.

Also at the power end is the Isle of Wight-based Jonny Malbon, who has had his own problems with a late project and a lack of time to hone both his own skills and as much of an understanding of Artemis as he would like. "I have been flat out since April and I am not in a position to go out all guns blazing, but also I cannot afford to drop off the back. Anyway, it's a race and I like to compete."

He admits that, at times, you just have to do things in the safest way, even if it is not the fastest. For instance, switching the boat's direction in the howling winds and building-high rollers of the Southern Ocean is when all hell can break loose. Far better to reduce sail, point back uphill, put the boat on its new heading and then put the sails back up. He calls it "granny tacking."

And, like many, he emphasises that, although out there alone, it is still a team thing. You may have a developing relationship with the boat, which changes its character from being just a tool to being a partner which many talk to as they go about the myriad chores every day.

But it is the team that put the boat together and is on the end of a satellite telephone call that gives so much importance to the mantra which Ellen MacArthur and her business partner Mark Turner repeatedly quoted: "Singlehanded, but never alone."

But the links with civilisation have brought their own tyranny. Not least the seemingly insatiable demand from sponsors, broadcasters and other media for words, pictures and sound off the boats. Nearly every day there is a media conference in Paris in which as many boats as possible are contacted and the public is not only invited to join in and listen but occasionally to ask questions. To read all the material would mean waking up at midnight and hoping to finish by 23.59 the same day.

In theory this should also have the benefit of contributing to safety, and this is reinforced by forcing the boats to stay north of the ice line when heading towards Cape Horn, something which the Australian government also requires if it is to bring the fleet within rescue range.

But, as Golding paraphrased so graphically, there is no-one to hear you scream in the Southern Ocean and the most likely hope of rescue in the event of a catastrophic failure is a fellow competitor.

The race is as hard to win as ever not least because Desjoyeaux is back, along with a star-studded line-up which includes defending champion Vincent Rioux, the ever-wily Loick Peyron, Barcelona race winner Jean-Pierre Dick, Roland Jourdain, Jean le Cam, and Marc Thiercelin, to name the French. Two Swiss include Dominique Wavre and the reigning Velux 5 Oceans winner, Bernard Stamm, who is now based in the solo sailor region of Brittany. You do not have to be a basket case before the start, you may not be a basket case after the finish, but you sure have to be a little mad.

THE SEVEN BRITS (PLUS ONE) TAKING PART

Click below the competitor to listen to exclusive interviews

Dee Caffari (35) came into professional sailing first by working for Mike Golding, then skippering a Global Challenge yacht around the world the wrong way for paying amateur crew and then taking that boat solo, non-stop over the same course. Her sponsor then, Aviva, put up the money for a brand new boat now to take on the challenge of doing the double, becoming the first woman to sail non-stop singlehanded both ways round the world.

Sam(antha) Davies (34) is working her way methodically to the top of singlehanded sailing. Her boat, now in the colours of Roxy, won the race in 2000 and 2004, but is definitely now a generation behind despite further development. French-based Cambridge graduate in engineering, she is showing an aptitude and liking for the game. Will be writing commentary for The Independent and The Independent Online.

Mike Golding, at 48, has already become a veteran and has been round the world so many times he can call the Southern Ocean home. His new boat, Ecover, had to have a new keel fitted, not the first time that Golding has been hit by major gear failure. He has come close, being third last time, but will be pushed very hard to grab a podium place.

Seb Jossse, at 33 is at the younger end of the scale but has a maturity beyond his years. This is his second Vendee, and he has two other round the world races under his belt. He is the plus one because he is the chosen driver of Ellen MacArthur's BT, which makes him an honorary Brit. A staunch Breton, he compromises by agreeing to be European.

Brian Thompson, at 46, knows this is a make or break race for him. In Pindar he has the most powerful boat, now carrying the colours of the Kingdom of Bahrain, but it was originally aimed at Transatlantic racing and has twice suffered a broken mast. He needs to unlock the power while developing with the boat.

Alex Thomson, at 34, has the high profile Hugo Boss, rather too high after it was rammed, holed and dismasted three weeks before the race. Had a reputation for charging at everything but has learned to measure his aggression, especially during the Barcelona two-handed non-stop round the world race, which finished last February. If chutzpah were the deciding factor, he would challenge for a top three.

Steve White, at 35 has four children, has mortgaged his house and has one of the oldest boats in the race as his steed to carry him from dream to reality. Spirit of Weymouth has been round the world three times in its 10-year life and White, still putting it together with 14 day to go, is nothing if not optimistic that it will be good for a fourth circumnavigation.

Jonny Malbon, 34 and from the Isle of Wight, had helped many other people’s campaigns before landing his own in the shape of Artemis. Has been far from plain sailing and he does not expect to be in the winner’s enclosure but hopes that he will improve as the race progresses and make the most of what is a powerful boat designed by Simon Rogers.