The World's toughest yacht race, the Vendee Globe where sailors are treated like rock stars, started earlier this month.
The Vendée Globe is a gruelling, non-stop, single-handed sailing race around the world that takes place every four years. The race is known as the "Everest of the Seas", though this epithet downplays the difficulty. Before this year's 10th edition of the race, just 200 people had started and only 114 of them crossed the finish line.
Setting off from Les Sables-d'Olonne on the French Atlantic coast the skippers sail 24,300 miles (45,000 kilometres) including the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian oceans rounding the three legendary capes (Good Hope, Leeuwin and finally Cape Horn) before returning to Les Sables d'Olonne. The fastest will make it back in around 80 days, and the slowest in around 120 days, many will fall by the wayside
The send-off is something to behold. After weeks of final preparations where over a million (and yes you did read that correctly) people visit the pontoons to view the boats and see the skippers and teams at work, race day finally arrives! It's hard to imagine the scale of the event if you haven't witnessed it. Half a million people (yes half a million) line the two sides of the mile-long channel that transports the boats from the pontoons to the open sea.
On our way in, cars were parked four and five miles away with people walking or cycling the remainder of the distance. By the time our party arrived at 7 AM with an hour to go, the crowds were already 4 deep on both sides. By the time the parade of sail started at 8 AM, the crowd was 8 or 10 deep with people on stools, chairs, step ladders and scaffolding platforms. Every and any space was filled with onlookers.
The PA system along the channel blares out music to get everyone in the party mood, French coastguard gendarmerie boats exit first, at 8 AM the first boat to ever win the race comes out and just after 8 AM the first skipper is introduced as the nearly 3-hour parade of sail officially begins. The crowds roar. Each skipper is given the rockstar treatment, encouraging the crowds as they progress down the channel.
The boats still have other team members and sponsors on board, the skippers stand on the decks to be awed by the fans. The odd one can be seen in fancy dress for the occasion. The contrast between this adulation and the solitude that will begin just a few hours later is extreme. At 5 minutes to go everyone but the skipper will be off and the adventure truly begins.
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You can follow the race on the Vendee Globe website
For the super enthusiast, you can find a load of not very professional images here.
And if you are interested you can follow L'Occitane Sailing Team and their reporter
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