Vendée Globe 2020: Vendée start without an audience - Les Sables goes into lockdown

It is the biggest sporting event in France after the Tour de France. Three million visitors usually make a pilgrimage through Les Sables d'Olonne in the week before the start of the Vendée; more than half a million line the breakwaters at the harbour and the beaches when the Imoca yachts set sail. But this year, due to coronavirus, everything will be different, more sombre.

It has just been announced that the Race Village will close tomorrow. From the weekend onwards, all hotels in the village will also be closed, as will the access roads. The sailing festival that many French people look forward to, to which fans from all over the country usually make a pilgrimage, is definitely cancelled.

Even the teams are feeling the effects of the lockdown. Race director Jacques Caraës yesterday ordered all skippers, some of whom had spent the last few days with their families until the quarantine ordered beforehand from Sunday, to Les Sables by Friday.

Boris Herrmann, skipper of the "Seaexplorer - Yacht Club de Monaco", therefore had to change his travel plans. He is leaving Hamburg in the next few minutes to get there in time before the city closes its doors.

For the teams, the all-important hospitality programme for sponsors has also been cancelled. Irene Bader, head of the DMG Mori Global One sailing team, has already had to cancel all invitations. The German-Japanese world market leader for machine tools based in Bielefeld had only planned to organise a limited contingent of guests anyway due to the contact restrictions. Now skipper Kojiro Shiraishi will sail without the moral support of the company's customers and employees.

After all, the organisers are adept at transporting the start of the solo non-stop race around the world planned for 8 November on other channels. Livestreams and TV broadcasts will now have to replace the magic of the on-site experience as the skippers sail one by one through the channel onto the Bay of Biscay and prepare for the start.

YACHT online will also keep you up to date on the Vendée Globe in the days leading up to the start and over the following three months. Our Imoca expert Andreas Fritsch, who has been following the race for YACHT for almost 25 years and has also closely followed the preparations of Boris Herrmann and co-favourite Alex Thomson, is already looking forward to the "most exciting race ever".