There can be no talk of a relaxing summer holiday for the upcoming Vendée Globe challengers this year. Many Imoca soloists are preparing for their winter endurance test with two transatlantic races in a row. Starting on 10 May, the classic The Transat CIC will take them from Brest to New York. Seventeen skippers have registered for this outward leg of the race. Ten more, i.e. 27 in total, want to be there when the race starts on 16 June from New York back to Les Sables-d'Olonne - the legendary start and finish port of the Vendée Globe, which will take its fleet of participants around the world non-stop and without outside help from 8 November.
Before that, many Vendée hopefuls will be taking part in the double transatlantic test, each covering around 3500 nautical miles. Firstly, The Transat CIC will cross the pond from east to west. As not all the Vendée boats will be ready by then or there are other reasons why two transatlantic races are not possible, only the 17 registered boats and their helmsmen are expected to take part on the outward journey from Brest to New York. On the return leg, the field of participants will increase significantly to 27 starters with the Transat New York-Vendée-Les Sables-d'Olonne organised by the Imoca Class Association in close cooperation with the French region of Vendée and the town of Les Sables-d'Olonne. Five female sailors and 22 male sailors will then put their equipment to the test one last time before the ultimate endurance test for the majority with the ninth edition of the Vendée Globe.
With a factor of four, both races across the Atlantic are important for the Imoca Globe Series standings. In the current 2020/21 rankings, Boris Herrmann is in third place behind Paul Meilhat (206 points) and Yann Eliès (192 points) with 180 points in his account. The Hamburg-based sailing professional will take part in both Transat races.
On the course from New York to Les Sables-d'Olonne, all eight boats newly built for the Vendée Globe 2020/21 are expected to race together on the starting line for the first time. Defending champion Jérémie Beyou on "Charal" will also be taking part. The Frenchman will try to beat the record of 9 days, 16 hours, 57 minutes and 49 seconds he set himself in 2016 on his fast foiler. Charlie Dalin ("Apivia"), Thomas Ruyant ("Advens for Cybersecurity"), Kojiro Shiraishi ("DMG Mori Global One"), Sébastien Simon ("Arkea Paprec"), Alex Thomson ("Hugo Boss"), Armel Tripon ("L'Occitane en Provence") and Nicolas Troussel ("Corum L'Epargne") will also be starting with new boats. It will be interesting to see how the designs from a total of four different designers fare in the competition. A total of 17 foilers are expected to be among the 27 boats. At 63 per cent, that is the majority.
"The boat is capable of winning on paper"
The majority of the participants in this transatlantic test come from France, but also from the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Japan and New Zealand. Boris Herrmann wants to use the long distances from Europe to America and back for intensive testing, a performance comparison between the heavily revised "Malizia" and the newbuilds and the corresponding location assessment. Herrmann says: "It is important that we arrive safely without a crash, validate all the modifications and learn to sail the 'new' boat - the Malizia 2.5. The boat is now ready to win on paper and I would be delighted with a top five finish at the Transat CIC."
Here to the homepage of the Imoca class association and further information.
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
