Vendee Globe - the riders
Sunday November 9th 2008, Author: James Boyd, Location: United Kingdom
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| For our look at the runners and riders in the 2008-9 Vendee Globe, we have broken them down into four groups:
Repeat Business - the most competitive entries all of whom have done (or at least started) the race before First Time Professionals - those who come from a pro-sailing background but who are attempting the race for the first time in a highly competitive manner Aspirants - those who come from a pro-sailing background, but who are primarily looking to get around Corinthians - essentially amateurs, doing it for the 'experience of a lifetime' With 30 entries this is a fairly long business, so we have separated them out on to four pages... REPEAT BUSINESS 
Michel Desjoyeaux – Foncia Is there any major solo transoceanic race MichDes/Le Professeur hasn’t won? In fact he hasn’t claimed the Mini Transat, although in 1991 he won the second leg (aboard the first offshore boat with a canting keel). Last year he became the third member of an elite club of triple winners of the Solitaire du Figaro (another being VM Materiaux skipper Jean le Cam). Most famously he won the 2000 Vendee Globe. After moving into the ORMA 60 trimaran circuit, he won the disastrous 2002 Route du Rhum and then the Transat in 2004.  With the subsequent demise of the ORMA circuit, Desjoyeaux (along with Loick Peyron and Marc Guillemot) has moved back into the IMOCA Open 60 class with a new Farr-designed sistership to Vincent Riou’s PRB. As his mentor, the late Eric Tabarly (with whom he sailed around the world in the Whitbread first on Cote d’Or and then La Poste) would have approved - his new Foncia is radical, although not as much as his 2000 Vendee Globe winner, PRB. One of the lightest of the new generation Farr boats, she has one of the most minimal deck arrangements and essentially nothing below other than two rectangular section beams running fore and aft on which he can mount a bucket seat (complete with computer screen).
With his great technical ability and his track record Desjoyeaux tops thedailysail form guide of competitors in the 2008-9 Vendee Globe. 
Loïck Peyron – Gitana 80 The incredible Loick Peyron would level peg with Desjoyeaux for the top spot in our form guide. Since moving back into the IMOCA Open 60 class (he last competed in the Vendee Globe in 1992) he has had the most successful track record, notably winning both singlehanded races, the Ecover Transat BtoB last year and the Artemis Transat this year, followed a further victory in the shorter fully crewed Trophee SNSM.  As is the case with Desjoyeaux, Peyron is one of the greatest ever ocean racers with a track record longer even than Desjoyeaux’s, having for example competed in the first two Vendee Globes and transats dating back to the early 1980s. Peyron is best known for his success in the ORMA class in which he most notably won the Europe 1 STAR both in 1992 and 1996 and utterly dominated the class inshore and offshore before his Fujifilm disastrously folded up in the 2002 Route du Rhum.
Aside from skippering Gitana 80, Peyron’s day job is as General Manager of Baron Benjamin de Rothschild’s Gitana team, including Lionel Lemonchois’ maxi-cat Gitana 13. Gitana 80 is a sistership of Jean-Pierre Dick’s Paprec Virbac 2 and has two Peyron-inspired unique features in a power boat–style trim tab/planning board under her transom and a sliding hatch that covers the cockpit. His boat differs from Dick’s in having a fixed rig and a unique rigging system (continuous PBO, developed by Maffioli). 
Sébastien Josse - BT A contempory from the Figaro fleet of the likes of Jeremie Beyou and Yann Elies, Josse is several steps of his old rivals having competed very successfully in the last Vendee Globe aboard an old boat ( VMI - now Akena Verandas - in which he finished fifth, despite hitting an iceberg off New Zealand) and then going on to lead the under 30-year-old crew of ABN AMRO Two in the last Volvo Ocean Race. With this and sailing around the world non-stop in the Jules Verne Trophy in 2005 aboard Bruno Peyron’s Orange 2, Josse is one of the most well rounded and accomplished competitors of his generation.  Having competed in the Barcelona World Race with Vincent Riou on
PRB until they broke their mast, Josse has taken over the helm of the Offshore Challenges IMOCA 60. This boat raced with Jon McKee and Guillermo Altadill as
Estrella Damm in the Barcelona World Race, before it too retired into Cape Town.
BT is a Farr-design, a sistership of
Delta Dore and has had the benefit of both Josse’s previous Open 60 experience as well as that of OC’s two previous campaigns in the class.
Dominique Wavre - Temenos II Swiss sailor Dominique Wavre rivals Loick Peyron as one of the veterans of the race with an equally long and illustrious offshore career. But while Peyron mainly concentrated on French races in the Atlantic, Wavre was one of Pierre Fehlman’s regulars, sailing three Whitbreads with him, the first in 1981. His career with the fully crewed round the world race concluded in 1993-4 when he sailed on Intrum Justitia under skipper Lawrie Smith.  Otherwise Wavre is one of the most well-rounded sailors. His career has seen him actively campaign dinghies, coaching in the America’s Cup as well as Figaro campaigns dating back to 1984, twice finishing second in the Solitaire. Alongside Roland Jourdain and Mike Golding, to date he is one of the longest continually serving members in the IMOCA Open 60 class, having built his first boat for the 2000 race.
His new sponsor Temenos came on board prior to the last Vendee Globe. Since then Wavre has had a new Owen-Clarke design constructed and which he has already sailed around the world to third place in the Barcelona World Race and fourth in the Calais Round Britain Race and 2006 Route du Rhum. Temenos 2 isn’t as tricked up as the other new boats, but we can expect a solid performance from this race veteran. 
Jean Le Cam - VM Matériaux One of the few controversial figures in the French shorthanded sailing community, Jean le Cam’s impressive track record is based on his sheer raw talent.  Even though le Cam is a little older, his background is similar to that of Michel Desjoyeaux and Roland Jourdain. He, like them, cut his teeth sailing around the world with Eric Tabarly, only a Whitbread earlier on
Euromarche in 1981. In his own right, by the late 1980s, le Cam had proved one of the leading French inshore skippers twice winning the Formula 40 multihull circuit, but is best remembered for his three Solitaire du Figaro wins between 1994 and 1999. After a stint in the ORMA 60 trimaran class, Bonduelle, his sponsor of the time decided to move into the IMOCA circuit, with le Cam having a new Lombard design built (sistership to Roland Jourdain’s
Veolia Environnement). This he raced to second place behind Vincent Riou in the 2004-5 Vendée Globe.
Le Cam continues to sail the same boat, although much modified and refined but with a new sponsor, VM Matériaux and a striking fluorescent pink paint job. The boat has a new stern and rudder arrangement on it, a new wingmast and keel and has gone ultra-light for the Vendee Globe. The question is - is this enough for her to be competitive against the large roster of new builds? 
Jean-Pierre Dick - Paprec-Virbac 2 While most of his rivals have been professional sailors all their working lives, Jean-Pierre Dick spent his 20s and 30s in ‘proper employment’ at his family’s pet medicine business, Virbac, based in the south of France. A regular competitor in the Tour de France à la Voile, Dick won the event in 2001 and shortly afterwards announced his ambition to compete in the Vendee Globe.  To achieve this he chartered the double Vendée Globe winner
PRB in which he won the doublehanded Transat Jacques Vabre in 2003. Meanwhile his new boat was in build - the first Open 60 from the eminent Farr Yacht Design office. Winning the TJV again in his new boat in 2005, Dick on his own finished sixth in the 2004 Vendée Globe after overcoming a number of technical issues.
To create another new Open 60 for this Vendee Globe, Dick created a design group led by Farr and including Loick Peyron. Built in New Zealand, Paprec Virbac 2 was first from the moulds that subsequently popped out Peyron’s Gitana 80, both boats featuring their unique planning wedge and sliding hatch system adding protection to the cockpit. Sailing doublehanded with Damian Foxall, boat and crew demonstrated their potential by winning the Barcelona World Race earlier this year. While clearly the boat is one of the most successful and tried and tested of the new generation, her performance in the Vendee Globe will be down to how well Dick has improved his skills as a singlehanded sailor. 
Mike Golding - Ecover 3  This Vendee Globe will be the third for Britain’s most capped singlehanded round the world sailor, Mike Golding, IMOCA World Champion for two successive years (2004-5 and 2005-6). While he sailed three times around the world westabout once singlehanded and twice in Sir Chay Blyth’s Global Challenge, Golding for more than a decade now has concentrated on the IMOCA Open 60 class and impressively is now on to his third new boat and his second from designers Owen-Clarke. Built in New Zealand, the new
Ecover is a development of his previous boat and a sistership to Dee Caffari’s
Aviva. Among its unique features is an interceptor/Platex, a plate that drops down beneath the transom.
Golding has the potential to win - he finished third in 2004 despite Ecover’s keel having fallen off a few miles short of the finish line and before that race had won the Transat. In this cycle in his new boat Golding has only been able to finish fifth in the 2007 TJV and third in the Artemis Transat while Ecover suffered keel issues in the 2007 Ecover Transat B2B and was forced to retire. His new boat is certainly fast enough to win the 2008 Vendee Globe, Golding lacks no experience and is mentally in the ‘right place’ for it to be third time lucky for the British hero. 
Roland Jourdain - Veolia Environnement  Roland Jourdain (aka Bilou) is another ex-Eric Tabarly crewman, competing with the French legend in the 1985 Whitbread aboard
Cote d’Or. Bilou then became a regular on the Figaro circuit, winning the Transat AG2R with Jean Le Cam in 1994 before joining the Open 60 class with the launch of his first
Sill in 1999.
Jourdain finished third in the 2000-1 Vendee Globe and over the following year was the class act in the class, winning the Transat Jacques Vabre in 2001 and becoming IMOCA World Champion. Prior to the last Vendee Globe, he had his second new Lombard-designed Open 60 built (a sistership to Jean le Cam’s VM Materiaux) but which suffered problems with its carbon fibre keel foil. Despite this issue supposedly being fixed, the foil woes perpetuated during the 2004 round the world race forcing him to retire half way round. This was rectified to some extent by his determined win in the 2006 Route du Rhum. Since then Jourdain has had Veolia Environnement, as his boat is now called, given a major reworking by designer Juan Koujoumdjian and, as he puts it, only the hull shell itself is original. Keel, daggerboards and rudders have been refined, the water ballast reconfigured to provide more power, the new mast is taller, even the internal structure of the boat has been Juan Ked… 
Vincent Riou - PRB  Having completed his tax returns…(the joke is that Vincent Riou ressembles an accountant), the 2004 Vendee Globe winner is back…
While his sailing CV includes the French match racing scene, and the Mini and Figaro circuits, we first came across Riou when he ran the technical side of Michel Desjoyeaux’s winning campaign in 2000. Following MichDes’ move into the ORMA circuit, so Riou inherited the skipper’s slot on board his Open 60 and the rest as they say is history. In the same boat, albeit much modified, Riou was one of the most consistent performers in the lead up to the 2004 Vendee Globe. Come the main event, he became the first person to take an old generation boat to Vendee Globe victory. For this Vendee Globe Riou initially teamed up with his old boss Michel Desjoyeaux, having two new Farr-designed Open 60s built at their local CDK yard in Port la Foret (run by Desjoyeaux’s elder brother). His new PRB was the first to come out of the mould in 2006 but on her first major competitive outing dismasted in the Route du Rhum. With a second rig in, the boat last year won the Calais Round Britain Race and the Rolex Fastnet Race, but in the Barcelona World Race the top of the mast snapped forcing her retirement. This year she has competed in the Artemis Transat, but collided with a whale, damaging her keel so severely that Riou felt obliged to abandon the boat. He finished the race on board the eventual winner Gitana 80 as his shore team quickly recovered the boat. If he has resolved the boat’s teething problems and ended his string of bad fortune, then Riou is more than capable of putting himself between all his competitors and the finish line. This accountant is quick! 
Bernard Stamm - Cheminées Poujoulat Certainly the coolest man in the Open 60 class, Swiss sailor Bernard Stamm has had a fabulous relationship with the other Open 60 singlehanded around the world race, the Velux 5 Oceans, winning that event twice.  However his Vendee Globe experience has been less happy - after completing his new self-built Pierre Rolland-designed Open 60 late for the 2000 Vendee Globe, Stamm was forced to retire with autopilot problems (he subsequently sailed to New York and set a new W-E transatlantic monohull and 24 hour records). A few months prior to the last Vendee Globe, Stamm all but destroyed his boat in the Transat. Unable to repair it in time or charter another boat, he was forced to sit the race out.
Since winning the Velux 5 Oceans 18 months ago, Stamm has acquired Jean-Pierre Dick’s first Farr-design Virbac and has refitted her extensively. Aboard the new Cheminees Poujoulat he has finished 3rd in the 2007 TJV, 6th in the 2007 Ecover Transat B2B and this year came third in the Trophee SNSM. While the V5O doesn’t have the extreme competition of the Vendee, there is no doubt that Stamm is one of the toughest characters in the race. But is his older generation boat fast enough ? 
Marc Thiercelin - DCNS ‘Captain Marc’ is the most capped competitor in this Vendee Globe (this is his fourth, having finished 2nd in 1996-7, 4th in 2000-1 and retired from the last with damage to his yacht’s mast and bowsprit). His track record shows that he prefers the solo round the world races – aside from the Vendees he finished second in the 1998-9 Around Alone (Velux 5 Oceans) - for apart from them, his participation in the IMOCA Open 60 class has been sporadic.  Like so many of his colleagues in the class, Thiercelin came up through a background in the Mini and Figaro classes. Over his tenure in the IMOCA class, his present boat is his second brand new Open 60.
His entry once again is an 11th hour affair, but a very impressive one. In a press conference this week Thiercelin said the 2004 Vendee Globe had been his last until the deal with DCNS, one of Europe’s largest shipbuilders, came up. Key to this is a ‘youth’ program and it was announced that after this Vendee Globe he hand over the boat to its new skipper, Figaro sailor Christopher Pratt. The boat itself is a Finot-Conq design, built from the Generali/ BritAir moulds, but with a deck with twin cabin tops like Hugo Boss. DCNS was the last of the 20-strong crop of new Open 60s to be built, but as a result lacks time on the water. 
Alex Thomson - Hugo Boss Winning the 1998-99 Clipper Round the World Race, aged just 25, launched Alex Thomson’s career as a professional sailor. Ever since he has focussed on racing Open boats. With the help of Sir Keith Mills, who sailed with him for part of the Clipper race, Thomson competed in the 2004 Transat in an Open 50 before purchasing Roland Jourdain’s highly successful IMOCA 60, Sill, prior to the last Vendee Globe. In the build-up to that race he set a new monohull singlehanded 24 hour record of 468 miles while competing in the Defi Atlantique.  Bringing the mighty sponsor Hugo Boss, a company better known for its association with Formula 1, into sailing, Thomson was doing well in the last Vendee Globe until the attachment of his boom came adrift causing a rupture in his boat’s deck just as he was entering the Southern Ocean. He was forced to retire.
After this Thomson set out on an ambitious program to sail three round the world races in consecutive years. Unfortunately this got off to a bad start when he was forced to abandon Hugo Boss after she suffered canting keel issues in the Velux 5 Oceans. He was rescued by fellow competitor Mike Golding (who’s Ecover dismasted just moments later). Thomson then moved on to his first new Open 60s, a new powerful Finot-Conq design with its novel twin cabintop layout, the construction masterminded by top Volvo Ocean Race builder, Jason Carrington. Aboard the new Hugo Boss, he finished second with Andrew Cape in the Barcelona World Race. Immaculately prepared for the Vendee Globe, Thomson’s 2008 Vendee Globe nearly came to an end when Hugo Boss was rammed by a trawler just off Les Sables d’Olonne. However the troops rallied and Thomson was able to have his severely damaged and dismasted boat repaired. But will this incident have made him stronger or weaker? Continued on page 2... |
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