DARING TO DREAM

A RECORD FLEET OF 33 SKIPPERS WILL LINE UP IN THIS YEAR’S VENDEE GLOBE. PIP HARE EXPLAINS HOW IT FEELS TO BE ONE OF THEM...

- PIP HARE

The Vendée Globe is the longest continuous racecourse in sport. Like some of the world’s great marathons, it offers something very rare: the opportunity for competitors from a wide range of backgrounds to race one another.

The Vendée Globe has a proud history of welcoming both the icons of the offshore sailing world as well as adventurers and rookies. The most experienced professionals, with multi-million Euro campaigns and leading-edge designs, compete alongside more Corinthian entries with their big dreams and small budgets, older boats and hasty branding.

Vendée Globe hopefuls may be dreamers, but they must also be skilled and self-sufficient sailors. Stringent entry requirements demand that anyone qualifying for a place will have thoroughly proven themselves and their boats’ abilities (at least one major solo ocean race, and a 2,000mile solo passage). Every competitor has earned their place through many hard miles and years of dedication.

In the first race in 1989 Jean-Luc Van Den Heede, now one of France’s most experienced solo racers, signed up aged 44 having only shortly before quit his day job as a maths teacher. With a budget of around €300,000 (in today’s money) he went on to finish 3rd. Over its 30-year history the costs have grown exponentially – a new set of foils alone would swallow most of what Van Den Heede spent. Yet every edition continues to attract sailors on humble budgets, for whom a podium place is an impossibility. Simply getting around is as far as most competitors allow themselves to dare to dream.