Top start for Francis Joyon
On Saturday, October 19, 2019 at 11:11 am (French time), Francis Joyon left Port Louis (in Brittany) to try to beat the record of La Mauricienne. He now has to travel 8?800 miles alone towards Port-Louis in Mauritius. His objectif?? Beat the reference time of 26 days, 4 hours and 13 minutes, which he established 10 years ago. It will therefore have to reach Mauritius before 14 November at 13:24 (GMT).
This course is equivalent to that of three Route du Rhum, as the skipper explains. " At no time can we really make a direct route. Ten years ago, I had covered 10?000 real miles, rather than the 8?800 of the theoretical route. It's going to be interesting to sail this boat for such a long time, to take the time to get to know it even better."
Skipper Macif is..
Erwan Le Draoulec will be wearing Macif's colours for the next two years. For the past 10 years, the Skipper Macif course has been supporting young skippers in their sailing training. They were 3 pre-selected - Erwan Le Draoulec, Achille Nebout and Gaston Morvan - but it is finally the winner of the Mini Transat 2017 who will join Pierre Quiroga, Skipper Macif 2019.
Foil damage for Sébastien Simon
While delivering his boat to Le Havre on October 16, for the start of the Transat Jacques Vabre 2019, Sébastien Simon - who entrusted us with the extraordinary potential of his boat - warned the shore team that the port foil had just broken. The vessel was sailing at 25 knots at the time of the damage. The port foil broke flush with the hull.
" Suddenly, we heard a crack, the foil broke. Fortunately, this foil did not damage the other elements of the boat, which allowed us to arrive here safely. We'll try to analyze what's left of the foil to understand what happened. The Transat Jacques Vabre, we no longer go there for victory or a podium, we go there to finish the race in good conditions and get rich from this experience. The Vendée Globe is the year prochaine?!
First entries on the Ocean Globe Race
In July 2019, the organiser of the Golden Globe Race 2018 announced the return of another great race, the Ocean Globe Race . This new version of the Whitbread Round the World Race will follow the same concept: a crewed round the world race with stopovers.
The organisation announces that the number of applications for registration far exceeds the number of places available. The main solicitations come from France, Finland and the United Kingdom. Interested parties include Tracy Edwards, a former Whitbread sailor and Finland's Tapio Lehtinen, the latest in the 2018 edition of the Golden Globe Race, whose shell covered with crustaceans had been the subject of much discussion .
"At this point, many wish to remain confidential, but I can now say that we have 12 firm registrations from Belgium, France, Finland, Scotland, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the USA with the most requests from Finland and France."
Return to Itajai for The Ocean Race
The Ocean Race 2021-2022 will stop over in Itajaí, Brazil for the 4th consecutive time. In 2017/2018, the stopover in Itajai, Brazil, was one of the most attractive, with more than 440?000 visitors coming to support the crews of the Volvo Ocean Race.
The race will start in Alicante, Spain, in the last quarter of 2021 and will end in Genoa, Italy in June 2022. The complete route will be confirmed in the coming weeks. Itajaí joins the cities of Aarhus (Denmark) and The Hague (Netherlands), alongside Cape Verde, which will be the first stop in West Africa in the history of the race.
