[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]È la regata più estrema esistente, perché condotta interamente in solitario, su monoscafi di 60 piedi (18 metri) senza scali e senza assistenza. Questo significa che per quasi tre mesi gli skipper rimangono da soli, nei mari più burrascosi del pianeta, cercando di far andare la loro barca il più veloce possibile.
The first edition is from 1989, but the first solo round-the-world tournon-stop, took place in 1968 and was an epic regatta. The Englishman Robin Knox-Johnston won in 313 days, but the one who went down in history was the French navigator Bernard Moitessierwho, on his way up the Atlantic, with victory already in his grasp, decided to abandon the race and continue to sail the oceans alone, completing another half circumnavigation of the world and then stopping in Polynesia. His message, launched on the deck of a merchant ship with a slingshotIt read: 'I continue non-stop to the Pacific islands because I am happy at sea and perhaps also to save my soul'.
But those were the 1960sToday, the regatta is a real media event, as well as a sporting one, with some twenty participants from many nations lining up on the starting line in Les Sables-d'Olonne, in the French department of Vendèe, every four years. After the start, they sail down the Atlantic Ocean, turn left at the Cape of Good Hope, sail straight to Cape Leewin (Australia) and then, after 9,000 kilometres of Pacific OceanThey round the famous Cape Horn and sail up the Atlantic, heading for the starting point. The race starts in November and usually ends in February, so that skippers can tackle the dangerous Antarctic seas during the austral summer period, when storms are less violent.
In addition to the men, the stars of this regatta are the boats, built with the latest technology and with yacht design solutions at the same time more robust and better performing. Because if something breaks in the middle of the ocean, there is no one you can call to get it fixed.
From a technical point of view, the fleet is divided into two: with foil and without foil. Those with foils are the latest generation of boats, i.e. they have the new hydrodynamic appendages that increase the righting moment, allowing them to hoist more sail area and thus be faster. But even those without foils have a canting keel, water ballast, rotating wing mast and deckspreader: in other words, a concentrate of the most sophisticated sailing technology currently available. All this is needed not only to try to win, but above all to come out unscathed from 21,600 nautical miles (40,003 km) of navigation where anything can happen.
The greatest dangers for skippers are:
- semi-floating objects (usually containers lost by some freighter) which destroy the keel and rudders on impact;
- the terrible storms that break out above 50 degrees South, where there is no land to contain the fury of the elements and the wind can reach 70 knots with waves of 7-8 metres;
- critical passages (from a sporting point of view, because you lose a lot of time and risk losing the race) such as the equatorial calms, the band in which the trade winds cancel out and the wind almost completely dies down (in English 'doldrums' and in French 'pot-au-noir').
As we write the race is being led by Frenchman Armel Le Cleach and Englishman Alex Thompson, who have already entered the Pacific Ocean. Should the Englishman take the lead in Les Sables-D'Olonne he would be the second in history, after Knox-Johnston, to succeed in the feat. The Vendee Globe has in fact always been dominated by the French.
You can follow the regatta live at: http://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/
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