Vendée Globe – In Port-La-Forêt, the sailors work on exclusion zone

by BM/M&M on 23 Sep 2016 At the Finistère offshore training centre in Port-la-Forêt in Brittany, seven Vendée Globe competitors are taking part this week in the penultimate training course before the big day. This involves sailing by night with an exclusion zone, like the one they will face in the Vendée Globe.

Seven sailors, all serious contenders to win the 2016 Vendée Globe, are attending this latest training session, which began on Monday 19th September. Armel Le Cléac’h (Banque Populaire), Vincent Riou (PRB), Jérémie Beyou (Maître Coq), Morgan Lagravière (Safran), Jean-Pierre Dick (St Michel-Virbac), Yann Eliès (Quéguiner-Leucémie Espoir) and Paul Meilhat (SMA) are up against each other, but learning from each other’s experience, which is the basic concept at the Centre. Unusually, they began the session with 150 miles of night-time sailing. “We needed to allow them time to recover before the Azimut Challenge, which starts on Friday,” explained Christian Le Pape, head of the Centre. In fact, the members of the Centre will finish this training course with a delivery trip together to Lorient, so they will be there for the start of the final IMOCA race before the Vendée Globe.

Light airs for the start, then with a front passing over, generating winds in excess of 20 knots… The conditions were perfect on Monday night. This exercise had another interesting feature: they had to sail around a circle, the centre of which was an exclusion zone… which should remind us of something. This year in the Vendée Globe, there will be an exclusion zone, instead of the Ice Gates we saw in previous races.

Having to adapt all the time
“This is not as simple, as it sounds, as it is always uncomfortable,” explained Christian Le Pape. “In particular, because in this precise case, you always need to adapt to another constraint. For example, it implies sailing further offshore or changing sails or the ballast tank configuration.” What this really means is that when sailing around a circle without entering it, you need to trim all the time and adjust your ballast and sail configuration, as well as your strategy. If you don’t plan ahead, you soon get punished. A penalty for entering the exclusion zone or quite simply having to sail further than necessary, if you only think about the short term situation. “You need to adapt your trajectory and be constantly trimming. That is bound to be an interesting exercise, which breaks the monotony of the usual routine.”

So how are the skippers doing with 45 days or so to go to the start? “We can feel the pressure building with the start of the Vendée Globe getting closer and closer,” explained Christian Le Pape, “Having said that, all the major choices have been made, whether we are talking about the design, the sails or preparation. We are now looking at the little details and the pairings of boat and sailor are certainly in better shape than a few months ago.” As for the battle between foilers and the boats with straight daggerboards, there is everything to play for. “It will depend on the points of sail and conditions, but for the moment, we can’t see any permanent advantage for one or the other. It’s well balanced. The Azimut Challenge will be very interesting to watch from that perspective.”

One final training session will take place before the race in early October. This will basically involve,”practising the scales on coastal runs,” Christian Le Pape told us. He is bound to appreciate it, if one of his members wins the Vendée Globe again, remembering they have done so in the last four editions.