Just happy to be home
The 10th edition of the solo around the world Vendée Globe race came to a close yesterday morning at 0700 when the race committee officially closed the course, as per the rules, after 116 days, 18 hours, 15 mins and 46 secs of racing – that being the race time for the last place finisher in the previous edition, Ari Huusela from Finland.
The enforcement of that deadline left one skipper still at sea and racing, Denis van Weynbergh on D’Ieteren Group. Weynbergh – the only 100 percent amateur competitor in this edition of the race – had earlier been on track to finish within the time limit and fulfill his goal of becoming the first Belgian to complete the race. However a broken mainsail halyard a week and a half ago left him sailing slowly with effectively three reefs in the mainsail. He was slowed even further when he encountered uncharacteristic light winds in the Bay of Biscay that all but put paid to his hopes of finishing within the time limit.
“I'm doing between 80 and 100 miles per day, it's complicated and depressing,” he said at that point. “I feel like a prisoner who is constantly having days added to my sentence and that there are a whole bunch of challenges to overcome to get out of prison. I admit that I'm really tired.”
Looking skinny and exhausted the Belgian skipper finally arrived in Les Sables D’Olonnes this morning – around 24 hours outside the race deadline. To his apparent bemusement he was welcomed home by hoards of well-wishers who lined either side of the channel, cheering and chanting his name as he waved from the foredeck of his yacht. “I am just little Denis from Belgium – I didn’t think anyone would be here,” he said quietly after stepping off his boat for the first time in nearly four months.
Asked what the hardest parts of the race had been, Weynbergh paused for a second before replying. “All of it," he said. "It has all been hard for the entire race.”
If his finish being determined to be ‘hors concours’ – outside of the rankings – has left a sour taste in his mouth then the Belgian sailor did not let it show on the pontoon as he hugged and kissed the members of the race management team who had gathered to greet him.
Pushing to the limit offshore
If like me you have marvelled at the images and video of the various high performance multihulls like the MOD70s and Ultims, then this excellent piece in Yachting World where Andy Rice finds out from offshore multihull wizard Pete Cummings how the professionals push these boats to the limit downwind may well be of interest.
My favourite is the section on what to do in the ‘Death Zone’ – the zone of power, typically between 90° to about 110° true wind direction, where Cummings says: “It’s easy for things to get out of control quickly.”
The Flying Irishman is honoured again
I was delighted to read that Irish solo sailor Tom Dolan has been awarded the prestigious Irish Sailor of the Year award for 2024, marking his second time receiving this honour. Dolan first earned this accolade in 2020 following his remarkable fifth-place finish in La Solitaire du Figaro, the best-ever result for an Irish competitor in the event's history. This time the award comes on the back of an even greater achievement—his historic victory in the 2024 Solitaire du Figaro Paprec, where he became the first Irish sailor ever to win the prestigious event.
For those who don’t know, Tom has a great backstory having been raised on a farm in a landlocked county in central Ireland where he was introduced to sailing when his father – on a whim – bought a beaten up wooden dinghy that the pair sailed on a nearby shallow lake.
”We used to take it out on the lake down the road and just float around, you know,” Tom told me during a recent interview on the Yacht Racing Life Podcast. “It was a fairly banged up little boat. When ropes were missing we would replace them with bailing twine. So it wasn't exactly beating through the high seas or anything like that.
“And it was a really shallow lake. In the winter, when it would freeze, you could walk cattle across it. It was probably safe for us to sail on because at least if you fell out you could stand up.”
All that is great
With so much attention being given over to sailing foiling classes these days it would be easy to forget that lots and lots of people still race conventional boats – and have an amazing time doing so. So I was heartened to receive a press release from the Los Angeles Yacht Club about the opening day of racing at the Port of Los Angeles Harbour Cup regatta – an event for university sailing teams competing in Catalina 37 keelboats.
The photo above is one of many excellent shots from the opening day but this one I think perfectly captures all that is great about fully crewed racing in conventional boats.
Cringe
Yacht Racing Life contributor Magnus Wheatley writing on his Rule69 Substack has taken aim at SailGP’s announcement of Grammy Award-winning artist DJ Khaled as the circuit’s ‘Chief Hype Officer’ for the three events taking place in the US this season. I could not agree more with Magnus on this.
Magnus says it much better than me but what on earth is this collaboration all about? Aside from the meaningless bump in social media numbers that Khaled’s almost 39 million Instagram followers will doubtless bring, it is hard to believe this initiative will drive any significant increase in the SailGP audience.
While we are on the subject, who signed off on the awful, cringe making SailGP theme music?
Or are Magnus and I just the wrong demographic?
Quick to Air
Finally, massive kudos to the Vendée Globe media team for having this nearly hour-long documentary video of the 10th edition online virtually the second after the race’s time limit expired. It’s a great combination of on board footage and post-race interviews and slickly dubbed into English for the non-French speakers. Amazing to be able to recap the race so quickly after its completion. I just finished it and it's a great watch.
My favourite onboard quote is from Yannick Bestaven: “When you are foiling you just have to hang on like a monkey in a tree!”
