Thirty elite solo sailors – a record number – will line up at the start on November 9 on France’s Atlantic coast of the Vendée Globe, the ocean race that stands alone as a supreme challenge of tactical nous, physical and mental stamina and sheer guts.
In what has been called “the Everest of sailing”, every four years the lone yachtsmen and women face a punishing non-stop 23,500-mile race that starts and ends in the Bay of Biscay through some of the world’s roughest seas; in the Southern Ocean, winds often exceed 80mph, waves can be as tall as multi-storey buildings and other hazards include icebergs and persistent fog. It is the race that has created heroes, heroines and heroics, and in 2001 moved Ellen MacArthur from the sports pages of the serious newspapers to the front pages of the popular press.
