The Vendée Globe is one of the most quintessentially French sporting phenomena. Fans who make the four-yearly pilgrimage to Les Sables d’Olonne – rising long before dawn to secure their spot on the town’s Atlantic-swept sea walls so they may wave their heroes off at the start – are probably only rivalled in passion by the obsessive Tour de France followers who spend summers camping roadside on mountain passes.

A whole infrastructure is built in France around the Vendée race and the IMOCA class. In Lorient and Les Sables armies of specialists handle the complex rigging, electronics and sails maintenance needs. There are the famed training camps out of Port-la-Forêt, where the best sailors in the world push each other harder and harder in the hunt for marginal gains.

For many it’s near impossible to break into this world without becoming a ‘French’ team (Alex Thomson and Mike Golding being rare exceptions who were based out of the UK). However, the current crop of IMOCA 60 skippers includes a good proportion of international skippers, many based in France – though not all. And this summer’s back-to-back transatlantic races have seen some of these skippers come to the fore.

May’s westbound Transat CIC, swiftly followed by the return New York Vendée Les Sables d’Olonne finishing in June, presented a dilemma for some teams: if qualifying miles were needed, the races had to be completed – perhaps more cautiously than usual. For some the schedule was too punishing, or the time and budget demands too arduous at this stage. Sam Goodchild and Pip Hare were among the skippers who opted to deliver their boat to New York instead.

For others the races represented an opportunity to truly test their boats and themselves in one last ‘big race’ scenario, albeit the North Atlantic in early summer offered very different conditions compared to what skippers can expect on this November’s Vendée Globe course.

Boris Herrmann

After a career best 2nd place on the outbound Transat CIC, finishing just 2h 19m behind winner Yoann Richomme, Germany’s Boris Herrmann (Malizia SeaExplorer) scored another 2nd place on the return New York Vendée Les Sables d’Olonne race.

Herrmann took an extreme northerly option, climbing over the dominant high pressure system to benefit from fast downwind conditions – at one point he was over 700 miles north-west of eventual winner Charlie Dalin and 1,100 miles away from the main peloton of top boats, which passed south of the Azores. The careful gamble at one stage looked like it might reward Herrmann with his first major solo race win.

Herrmann, who bases his campaign out of Monaco, has done much to raise the profile of offshore racing in Germany, following his 5th place in the 2020 Vendée. The Ocean Race, in which he finished third, also won many fans. But despite those successes, and his notably different IMOCA design, Herrmann has a reputation for perhaps being a little conservative. With two 2nd places under his belt, is he now going to be challenging for the front of the Vendée fleet?

“I think it may make me a bit more confident,” Herrmann agrees. “I’d expect to be starting full throttle, but with a little bit of expectation to stay or to reclaim a good position wherever possible.

“I may also be more likely to be more in race-mode as sometimes I’m a little on my own planet and doing my own thing!”

After 29,000 miles he has high confidence in Malizia-SeaExplorer. “I think now my boat is indestructible – we have half a tonne more carbon than some other people.

“A strength of my boat is when it’s very irregular and unstable, because it is more tolerant [of those conditions]. Its particular strength is probably downwind in sea state, I have the best boat in the fleet for that. Obviously you pay for that when it’s upwind in medium conditions.

“In the light I’m quite good, but in everything pre-foiling – when some of the Verdier designs might just pop on the foil – then we struggle a bit. I need 1-2 knots more.”

To be at the front of the fleet brings its own intensity. “[The New York race] was a very unusual, extreme situation. It’s unlikely we’d ever have such a big split in the Vendée. Quite often it’s more about small optimisations of basically the same trajectory with some boats around you.

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“That is normally quite relaxing for me, as long as I have other people around. In the Transat CIC I had Sam Davies on the AIS all the way until the finish. That was super relaxing, I could lie on my bunk and have a big percentage number [displayed] and see how much distance I was gaining or losing. It’s a bit like having a pacemaker.”

Managing stress is a huge element of the Vendée Globe. What does Herrmann find most challenging? “My main focus now is on recovering better after having gone through stressful situations. For example, during the last Vendée I had the stress of needing to climb the mast with a fear of heights. And I needed to look for Kevin [Escoffier, four skippers were diverted to assist in a search and rescue]. And those situations I remember for days, it took me a while [to get over them].

“This could be quicker if I pay more attention to telling my subconscious ‘it’s fine, it’s all good, don’t worry’. That’s what I mainly want to learn, the attitude of not worrying so much, as I always worry too much about everything.”

Pip Hare

The New York to Les Sables race was also a career best for British-based Pip Hare, who finished ninth.

The real success story for Hare and her team is how closely she and Medallia were matching some of the front-runners in the fleet for speed – at times racing within range of Goodchild and Thomas Ruyant, alongside Justine Mettreaux on Teamwork, Sam Davies, and Yoann Richomme on Arkea Paprec. “I am so, so pleased as it is next level for me and the boat. And it is a validation that as a team we really needed,” she said after finishing.

“I have learned a lot about my comparative speed. I have always said it is difficult to be the lone team in the UK. We are very much in isolation. I have learned now about my pace compared to different generations of boat and I have been impressed with Medallia’s performance. It has some holes – as you would expect from a 2016 generation boat – but I was impressed in the conditions that it can hold its own.

“And I just love sailing this boat, I flipping love it!

“I hope this sets the bar high and I won’t go back – that comes with a certain pressure. I have always aspired to be in the top 10. But you can’t click your fingers and get there. It’s a hard, hard journey.”

Sam Davies

British skipper Sam Davies has long been part of the French IMOCA world, but she’s also long established as one of the top international skippers, finishing fourth on her debut Vendée with Roxy in 2008. She was dismasted in 2012 (on Savéol), then had to retire in 2020 after her previous Initiatives Coeur hit an underwater object. But for 2024 she has her first custom-designed IMOCA, a 2022 Manuard design.

The joy Davies still finds in solo sailing, 21 years after her first Figaro, is evident. In all her videos from this summer’s transats Davies seemed to be perpetually smiling, a grin which was at its widest on the dock in Brooklyn where she sprayed champagne over her team to celebrate a hard won third place in the Transat CIC. That result – Davies’ best ever IMOCA in the foiling era – was backed up by a strong sixth on the return race.

She and Initiatives Coeur were clearly flourishing at the pace being set by Jérémie Beyou, Justine Mettraux, Thomas Ruyant, and Yoann Richomme. All might be considered Vendée Globe podium contenders – as Davies also clearly now is.

“It was so important for the Vendée Globe to have done those races and to get good results in both of them is a big confidence builder,” Davies says. “For me it was important for the testing factor because I still judge my boat as quite new.

“Last year we just got it up and running so it was really important for me to ‘send it’ across the Atlantic and really push both ways. Now I know I can send it in the middle of the Southern Ocean when there is no shelter nearby.

“This has proven that I’m capable of sailing my boat to its potential. These boats are so powerful and can be violent and a handful to live on – and to keep pushing over a prolonged period of time. So now I feel I’m at the same level as my boat, but I also learned, ‘Whoah, I am in the match!’ I’m up there with the front group and that’s what I, and my team, have always wanted. Those are our ambitions. We want to be in that lead peloton. I’ve proven to myself I can do that, and that it’s really good fun. That makes me want to do that more.

“Maybe there is that little bit of extra pressure now as I have proven I can be on the podium once. But I have done the best things I could have leading into the Vendée Globe, and there is nothing better than being up there among the ‘favourites’ because for the project it keeps us up at the front in the pre-race build up.

“We have a bit to do to refit and reinforce the boat this summer but there are no performance changes. That’s nice to know. I have all the sheets marked and my little ‘bible’ of how to sail this boat is pretty good now.

“I have some new sails. For my sail choices the fact I did the Southern Ocean leg with Biotherm was a big help. You easily forget what it’s like in the Southern Ocean and what it’s like there on your own, and what a huge percentage of the Vendée Globe that is. [That was] one of the big gains to having done that and lived in such an extreme way with the issues we had.

“I am on top of the miles table – that in itself is reassuring, to know I could not have done more in preparation. Some people see it as wearing the boat out or it being too tiring but it’s really important to have done the training. Now I’m in such a good place.”

Sam Goodchild

Sam Goodchild marked his card early on as a likely Vendée Globe podium contender going into his first attempt – though the modest British sailor is unlikely to say as much.

After spending much of his childhood in the Caribbean on his family’s cruising yacht, Goodchild returned to the UK for school and went through the Artemis Academy in Cowes before moving to France. After impressive results in the Figaro, Class 40 and Ocean Multi 50, he signed his first IMOCA deal in early 2023.

His Vendée campaign hit the ground running with a string of thirds in the double-handed Guyader Bermudes 1000, Rolex Fastnet, Défi Azimut and Transat Jacques Vabre in 2023, before also taking third in his first ever solo IMOCA race, last year’s Retour à La Base.

He elected not to do the outbound Transat CIC this spring, but to focus instead on the New York-Les Sables as the race likely to be more representative of Vendée Globe conditions. But while lying fourth with 1,100 miles to the finish line, Goodchild‘s IMOCA Vulnerable lost its mast. He sailed under jury rig to the Azores, before the IMOCA was repatriated to Lorient under tow.

He is determined the accident won’t compromise his build up to his first Vendée Globe. “We planned to put the boat in for a summer refit, so in theory we might lose no time at all. The refit is just a post-race check – screw everything on a bit tighter and add some more knots to things, make sure we don’t take any risks!

“We can reassure ourselves that the boat’s done eight years and we are going to put a rig on it that is better than the rig which was put on originally – and trust that the 100,000 miles before it broke all went fine. You definitely wouldn’t choose to be in this situation five months out of the Vendée Globe, but you make the best of the scenario.”

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