The enormously popular skipper has announced that he is retiring from the Vendée Globe, and is currently heading to Cape Town. Speaking from Hugo Boss today, a clearly emotional Thomson…
Vendée Globe: Everything you need to know about the world’s toughest sailing race
Vendée Globe 2020 start: Record fleet sets off from Les Sables d’Olonne
After the strangest of departure days, the Vendée Globe fleet set off this afternoon at 1420 local time. To start a round the world race is always an enormous relief,…
2020 Vendée Globe preview: Pip Hare and Paul Larsen’s guide to the fleet
The 2020 Vendée Globe, which sets off on Sunday, November 8, sports one of the most diverse IMOCA fleets the event has ever seen. Over the 33 entries there is…
2020 Vendée Globe: Pip Hare explains how it feels to be on the starting line
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…
Vendée Globe racer Pip Hare on maintaining your focus on long sea passages
For me, managing a 60ft IMOCA alone demands my full attention so there is little time for distraction. However, even then it can be difficult to maintain really long-term focus.…
Vendée Globe 2020 preview: Next generation foilers will sail on the limit
The world of single-handed offshore racing is a uniquely rarefied one. It’s an oft-quoted statistic that more people have been into space than sailed around the planet non-stop, but solo…
5 tips: Vendee Globe veteran explains how to face the fear and do it anyway
Facing your fears is something that challenges every sailor, but none more so than those taking on single-handed offshore racing. Nick Moloney is a social animal and thrives on being…
Vendée Globe 2020: Pip Hare on preparing for the world’s toughest race
It would be easy to assume the toughest challenge of the Vendée Globe Race is racing a 60ft IMOCA alone, battling the elements, sleep deprived and exhausted. But for me,…
Pete Goss transatlantic: Vendee Globe racer embraces life in the slow lane
Out of the blackness a breaking crest makes itself known with an alien glow of tumbled phosphorescence and roars past. This is not what we expected when we set off…
Hugo Boss: Sailing on board Alex Thomson’s £6million foiling machine
“What’s my speed? What’s the speed? What’s the boatspeed now?!” Alex Thomson hollers into a microphone. Thomson, at the helm of his brand new Hugo Boss, is pumped. As we…
Charal: On board the radical IMOCA 60 that takes foiling to the next level
In St Malo for the start of the Route du Rhum in early November, every inch of the IMOCA 60 pontoons was packed with fans trying to get a close…
Alex Thomson profile: Understanding the man behind the suit
Everyone knows Alex Thomson. He’s not only one of the most immediately recognisable IMOCA 60 skippers, but one of the few sailors who have managed to transcend the sport and…
Volvo Ocean Race confirm next race will be held in IMOCA 60s – but opinions are divided among crews
After months of speculation – Yachting World broke the story than the IMOCA 60 class were in the final stages of negotiation with the Volvo Ocean Race back in April…
Vendée Globe IMOCA 60 designs could be adopted for the next Volvo Ocean Race
Final negotiations are underway between the IMOCA class and the Volvo Ocean Race (VOR) to adopt the IMOCA 60 as the design the next fully crewed round the world race.…
Conrad Colman’s Vendee Globe story in his own words – “I gave this race my all”
Carbon fibre race yachts are noisy beasts. Sharp creaks from the sheets in the cockpit, constant thumping bass notes from the hull slamming against the oncoming waves and the staccato…
How Alex Thomson nearly won the Vendée Globe 2016-17
In the piercing cold morning of 18 January, Armel Le Cléac’h was grasping a 34-mile lead in the Vendée Globe, racing upwind towards the Scilly Isles. A wind shift to…
Alex Thomson hailed by French for ‘magnificent 2nd’ in Vendée Globe but admits “It was brutal”
Alex Thomson finished the Vendée Globe solo round the world race in the biting cold of dawn today to take 2nd place in a time of 74d 19h 35m. Like the…
Dream finish for Armel Le Cléac’h as he conquers Vendée Globe race and pays tribute to rival Alex Thomson
France gained a new hero this afternoon when solo sailor Armel Le Cléac’h crossed the finish line of Vendée Globe race in Les Sables d’Olonne. It was third time lucky on this great…
Alex Thomson fighting exhaustion as electronics problems threaten Vendée Globe hopes
British sailor Alex Thomson has a fight on his hands to try to make up the 34-mile deficit on the leader of the Vendée Globe race – and the main…
Alex Thomson and Armel Le Cléach battle for Vendée Globe record
When François Gabart won the Vendée Globe solo round the world race in 2013 at his first attempt, he set a superb new record of 78d 2h and many said it…