Vendée Globe : les dernières infos Tip & Shaft

Ten months before the start of the Vendée Globe and a very intense build up season which will open with The Transat CIC (starts May 10) and rolls straight into the New York-Vendée (June 16), almost all of the IMOCAs are fully engaged in their winter refits. For some the job list is more comprehensive and may include new foils, for others constrained by budgets it is more about maximising reliability and small incremental performance gains. 

24th on the Transat Jacques Vabre – her first big IMOCA transatlantic – Pip Hare, back to her home base in Poole, England, had just lifted her famous evergreen 20 year old IMOCA Superbigou out of the water ready for a refit to be ready for the 2020 season and the Vendée Globe. Hare, 45, a former Mini sailor, is on one of the tightest budgets of the fleet but says if she does not have the money she won’t do the race…

After losing his mast when he was in 10th place and some 750 miles from the finish line of the Vendée Globe Conrad Colman’s epic 14 day struggle to complete his race highlights his remarkable grit and determination and remains one of the outstanding stories in the recent history of the race. The Brittany based native of New Zealand, 36 next month, confirmed recently that he will take part in the next race after having agreed a charter of the 2004 Marc Lombard design Vivo A Beira which started life as Roland Jourdain’s Sill 2/Veolia and which Sam Davies raced as Saveol. Work starts almost immediately on the boat while Colman confirms he is still looking for a title co-sponsor to complete the budget he wants. Tip & Shaft caught up with Colman.

On Sunday November 1st, the SAEM Vendée, the organisers of the Vendée Globe published the official list of the 37 candidates for the next edition of the famous non stop solo race around the which starts in one year’s time today, Friday. Tip & Shaft provides an update on the 37 candidates and any potential decisions the organisers will have to make on July 1, 2020, the final registration deadline. 

Last Sunday the SAEM Vendée, the organisers of the Vendée Globe published the official list of the 37 candidates for the next edition of the famous non stop solo race around the which starts in one year’s time today, Friday. The list revealed one big surprise, Yann Eliès will sail on a new boat.  

Yves Auvinet who is the president of SAEM Vendée which organizes the Vendée Globe, announced last Wednesday that the list of skippers who can register for the next edition of the famous solo round the world race is to increase to 34 skippers (30 and 4 wild cards). Tip & Shaft tells you how this decision was made.

The new Hugo Boss that everyone was so keen to see was launched in early August in Gosport before being officially presented and christened in London last Thursday. It was an opportunity for Tip & Shaft to talk to Quentin Lucet, who is in charge of the project at VPLP. For this interview, he was accompanied by Vincent Lauriot-Prévost.