Vendee Globe 2008

We speak to Race Director Denis Horeau about this year's event and his F18 event, Raid Bleu

Operating through his Paris-based company Ambrose Light, Denis Horeau is one of the most respected Race Directors in France, a job he has carried out for The Race in 2000, the first Vendee Globe and last one in 2004 with a long tenure at the helm of the Solitaire du Figaro in between. Today Horeau remains in charge of the Vendee Globe, which this winter is set to be one of the greatest round the world races of all time. As many as 30 IMOCA Open 60s could be on the start line come 9 November. Of these 20 have launched during this four year Vendee Globe cycle.

“It is going to be a fantastic race,” confirms Horeau. “There will be 27-30 boats - 30 is the maximum. We have had 32-33 pre-registered boats.”

Recently the 20th new IMOCA Open 60 was launched in the form of Marc Thiercelin’s Hugo Boss-sistership, DCNS and now it is all on for the remaining teams to complete their qualifications for the Vendee by the deadline of 1 July.

Qualification for the world’s most extreme oceanic race is a little complex but Horeau says boils down to the skipper having to prove themselves singlehanded on their boat. The Vendee Globe Notice of Race stipulates that competitors can qualify by competing in a major solo offshore event, typically the Transat Ecover B2B or the Artemis Transat. However there are many who have been unable to achieve this either due to a late launch, gear failure or, as has been the case with many teams following the recent spate of dismastings - the late delivery of equipment (read the arrival of their new masts). In these instances it is down to a ‘commission’ comprising representatives of the Vendee Globe organisation, IMOCA the Open 60 class association and an International Jury (representing the French sailing federation, the FFV) to decide whether or not each individual competitor is allowed to enter if they complete a solo qualifier that isn’t a race.

“In the Notice of Race it says the skipper must prove that they and the boat – it was impossible for them to enter or finish a race,” explains Horeau. “For example [ Delta Dore skipper] Jeremie Beyou entered the Route du Rhum - had a big personal problem, so he had to stop and come back. He promised to enter other races. So he entered the Barcelona World Race and his mast fell down. And he ordered a new mast, but the mast arrived too late to enter the Artemis Transat. So this is a case of someone trying to do everything to enter a race.”

In these instances the skipper must complete a singlehanded passage of around 4,500 miles, starting from 5degW and crossing 50degW while remaining north of 52degN for more than 12 hours. It is this passage that Brian Thompson and Pindar are in the middle of at present.

Other skippers such as VM Materiaux skipper Jean le Cam or Austrian skipper Norbert Sedlacek, who are sailing the same boats as they were in 2004, could have automatically qualified for the 2008 Vendee Globe, only that they have both made significant modifications to their boats requiring them to sail an additional ‘validation’ passage of 1,500 miles, solo or fully crewed. This is also true of skippers with new boats that have qualified and but subsequently have had a significant modification made them (such as mast or keel replacement, change of stability, etc), such as Dominique Wavre and Temenos 2 which has been fitted with a new rig since the Barcelona World Race. Finally there is also a special rule for those who have completed either of the last two Vendee Globes or the Barcelona World Race, who only have to sail a 2,500 mile qualifier, as was the case for example for Alex Thomson and Hugo Boss and most recently for Marc Thiercelin. As of today 22 boats are qualified.

If there are some top moments to experience as a yachting spectator then certainly one high up the list is the start (and finish) of the Vendee Globe in Les Sables d’Olonne half way up France’s Atlantic coast. The crowds are immense, several people deep all along the lengthy harbour entrance as the boats leave on start day, while during the days prior to this, Port Olona where the boats are moored, is heaving with spectators.



A problem this year is the size of the fleet. For reasons of draft the fleet is moored either side of a single pontoon opposite the former Jeantot Marine factory, once upon a time belonging to the solo non-stop around the world race’s creator, Philippe Jeantot. Horeau admits that with such a large fleet mooring up there is an issue and they have been forced to separate deck spreader and non-deck spreader boats. Even then he warns that if the wind picks up to more than 15 knots three or four boats will have to leave the dock and go to another part of the harbour to prevent rigs clashing.

As ever the job of the race organiser is to do the utmost to improve the safety of competitors. In the case of the 2008 Vendee Globe this has never been truer. There are a record number of boats, the new boats are much more extreme in terms of rig size and the power of their beamy hull forms and this comes following two relatively benign races (three races ago in 1996 several boats including those of Tony Bullimore, Thierry Dubois and Raphael Dinelli, capsized and alarmingly remained inverted during a 50 knot storm, while later in the Pacific Canadian competitor Jerry Roufs disappeared, his boat found months later upside down off the Chilean coast with no sign of her skipper on board). Statistically we are due for another ‘big weather’ Vendee Globe.

“The answer is not black or white,” says Horeau when we enquire how much this concerns him. “The skippers are very much better prepared than they were before. The boats are safer than they were before. But they are more extreme than they were before. We had two very very cool races in 2000 and 2004 and everybody is able to forget what happened in 1996 - only old people like me can remember! I worry about that of course.”

Obviously the race organisers are doing everything in their power to improve safety and for this reason they are revisiting the course once again. Typically round the world races such as this have waypoint gates in order to keep boats north in the Indian and Pacific Oceans, but for the last decade race organisers have been obliged to keep their fleet within 1,500 miles of Australia and New Zealand (a requirement following the lengthy – and costly - rescues efforts made by the authorities in these countries during the 1996 Vendee). Horeau says they are looking again at this as, despite sending the boat north in 2004, there was still considerable presence of ice during that race, and this resulted in Seb Josse’s VMI striking a berg off New Zealand. Bcause of this Horeau says they may move the waypoint gates further north still.

To help prevent collision avoidance with other maritime traffic, all Open 60s are now obliged to carry AIS (Automatic Identification System), the short range gear typically found on commercial vessels. Thus skippers will now be warned via their yacht’s on board AIS transponder of any shipping in their vicinity, but nearby ships too will know their whereabouts. Typically in the past skippers have relied on radar and radar transponders to achieve this.

As to the problem with icebergs, in the race four years ago the Vendee Globe organisers spent much time working with a Canadian organisation that specialised in the tracking of bergs and moving ice via satellite, getting them to focus their attention on the Southern Ocean. Read more about this here. According to Horeau they are attempting to improve further on this method of ice spotting, more details of which he says he will disclose closer to the start.

In addition to this skipper Marc Guillemot is working with his giant aero-space sponsor Safran to come up with some equipment that will spot bergs at a distance via a thermal imaging device fitted to the masthead of his yacht. This he had installed prior to the Artemis Transat. While this gear is expensive and a little bulky and ‘commercial’ for race boats, Horeau believes it could be extremely useful by the time it is refined come the Vendee Globe in 2012. “It is a very good system and it is also good because it has such a big company trying to find a solution to this challenge. I strongly believe that the future is in this system. I guess that for crewed races it is going to be a very very good system, so long as you have to have someone pretty much all the time at the chart table.

Now all that is needed is an effective sonar device that can spot other boat-damaging flotsam such as semi-submerged containers or whales.

Other races

While the Vendee Globe is is the big gig for Horeau this year, through his company Ambrose Light he also runs two other very different events.



Last year marked the first running of the Raid Bleu. While the recently concluded Archipelago Raid is perhaps the best known of these long distance dinghy cat events, the origin of these style of races is French, with many of these ‘raids’ having been held in the more exotic parts of the globe over the years.

Raid Bleu falls somewhere between the Archipelago Raid and a regular Formula 18 regatta. It is held out of Saint-Vaast-la Hougue on the east side of the Cherbourg peninsula.

“The wind can blow strongly from the westerly wind and you are in a very calm water all the time,” enthuses Horeau. “The place is beautiful. We are aiming to have 50 crews from 10 nations and a high competitive level.” While the race doesn’t stop off at a different location each night, instead returning to Saint-Vaast-la Hougue, there will be a number of long courses - around 40-70 miles, states Horeau. But given the speed of F18s these tend not to last for long. “These boats sail very fast. Last year in the big race the average speed was 18.5 knots - it was incredible. We had very very clam water and a northerly wind and they were sailing 20-23 knots all the time. The sailors loved it.”

Among the competitors this year Horeau hopes to attract more F18 sailors from the UK.

For aside from the race format the Raid Bleu is more than a mere regatta. Its title doesn’t just refer to the colour of the sea but the environmental campaign the event doubles as. As a result there will be a large ‘village’ attached to the event, which is to be held over 13-17 August, coinciding with one of the biggest holiday weekends in the area. Unfortunately these dates also coincide with the Olympic Games meaning that many of the top F18 sailors also with Tornado campaigns, won't be attending. Still, even without this elite group, there are still enough top F18 teams around Europe to fill the event several times over.

“We are aiming to have 30,000 people through the village. It is going to be a big deal,” says Horeau. “It is five days. We will host everyone, feed everyone, give a bed to everyone. So they just come, with their boats. The village is a five minute walk away. Entry is only 200 Euros per boat which is nothing. We have an excellent cook. It is a convivial atmosphere. Everyone knows everyone. Last year there were six nationalities competing.”

And at yet another extreme of the yachting spectrum, Horeau also runs the very much more silver spoon Regates Royales de Cannes for metre boats and other classics. In addition to gathering the Cote d’Azur’s shiniest wood and varnish hardware, the event is also a grand meeting for the Dragon class with some 70 to 80 boats expected for this year’s event over 21-28 September.