Vendée Globe: Not just a French race

The 2024-25 Vendée Globe solo round-the-world race, which starts from Les Sables d’Olonne on the French Biscay coast on November 10, will see the largest contingent of non-French entrants since the race was founded in 1989.

With 14 of the 40 starters hailing from outside France, this will be a truly international competition with sailors taking part from as far afield as Switzerland, Hungary, Great Britain, Italy, New Zealand, Japan, USA, Belgium, and Germany, but also for the first time from China.

Non-French sailors include some of the most competitive among the foiling boats. They include Boris Herrmann of Germany (Malizia-Seaexplorer), and Sam Davies (Initiatives-Coeur) and Sam Goodchild (Vulnerable) of Great Britain, who will each be aiming to become the first sailor from outside France to win the Vendée Globe.

Antoine Mermod, the President of the IMOCA Class, said the number of non-French competitors in the 2024-25 race is the latest evidence of the way in which the IMOCA Class is broadening its appeal internationally.

“We are delighted to see so many international sailors taking up our biggest challenge in the Vendée Globe,” he said. “I hope we will see more single-handers take inspiration from what these men and women achieve on the course this winter and join the race in 2028.”

The biggest national representation in the non-French entry this time is from Switzerland, with three sailors taking the start – Alan Roura on Hublot, Oliver Heer on Tut Gut.Sailing, and Justine Mettraux on Teamwork-Team SNEF. Roura loves the fact that his landlocked mountainous nation, famous for its winter sports prowess, is so well represented in the Everest of solo yacht racing.

“It’s the first time we have three Swiss sailors, so that’s pretty cool,” he said.

Swiss interest in ocean racing and solo ocean racing goes back to the old days of the Whitbread Round-the-World Race in the late 1980s when three Swiss crews took on the forerunner of The Ocean Race. That, in turn, inspired single-handers, and IMOCA legends, like Dominique Wavre and Bernard Stamm to race alone on the ocean.

“I think we just fell in love with it,” said Roura who, at 31, is preparing for his third Vendée Globe, having finished 12th and 17th in the last two editions. “We wanted to sail on the Atlantic because sailing on the Lake (Geneva) is small and when you taste single-handed sailing, you just want to keep going. And then you start dreaming of the Vendée Globe…so it has become part of the Swiss mentality to do offshore sailing.”

Among the non-French entries this year the race sees its strongest ever representation from Asia. Kojiro Shiraishi of Japan is taking on the Vendée Globe for a third time on DMG Mori Global One, while Jingkun Xu, the remarkable one-armed sailor from Qingdao, will be the first Chinese sailor to attempt the race when he sets sail on Singchain Team Haikou.

Source: Ed Gorman, IMOCA

Event information – Entry list – Facebook

The Vendée Globe, raced in the 60-foot IMOCA, is the elite solo, non-stop round the world race. On November 10, 40 skippers will start the 2024-25 edition which begins and ends in Les Sables d’Olonne, France. Armel Le Cléac’h, winning in 2017, holds the record for the 24300 nm course of 74 days 03 hours 35 minutes 46 seconds. Only one sailor has won it twice: Michel Desjoyeaux in 2001 and 2009.