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Conseil Général de Vendée

The Vendée Globe: forever in Vendée It was not by chance that the Vendée Globe was created in the Vendée area of France: this is a land of entrepreneurs, where people willingly take up challenges, so our "department" looking outwards to the Atlantic was the obvious choice.
Since the very first contest back in 1989, the sports fans and adventure lovers of Vendée have turned out in force for those skippers, attempting to overcome the Everest of the seas every four years. It was quite natural that they got together with the County Council to ensure that this race was forever linked to Vendée and that the planet's greatest skippers would choose the port of Les Sables d'Olonne as the starting point and finish for the craziest project in their career.
The gamble has clearly paid off, as the last Vendée Globe race was an unprecedented sporting success with Vincent Riou shattering the race record (a little over 87 days) after a toughly fought battle on the seas with "King Jean".

Going beyond the purely sporting aspect, the Vendée Globe remains a fantastic media and tourism opportunity for the whole of Vendée. Thus, in 2004, 842,000 visitors strolled along the pontoons in Port Olonna and more than 30,000 press articles (printed press, radio, television) were published around the world.
The story continues and already a large number of skippers are dreaming of becoming part of the legend when they cross the starting line for the next Vendée Globe on 9th November 2008.

Website: www.vendee.fr

Sodeb'O

As the only private main sponsor of the Vendée Globe, the Vendée-based company has confirmed its commitment to transoceanic sailing, and more specifically to non-stop, single-handed world circumnavigations. "A world circumnavigation is a global adventure with values of commitment, simplicity and daring that resonate with those defended by the company since it was created 35 years ago", says Patricia Brochard, co-president of the group Sodeb'O. The company is now the market leader in refrigerated products with a wide range of practical, tasty products catering for all desires at any time. The brand accompanies the different temp'Os of the consumer thanks to a varied offering of pizzas, sandwiches, pancakes and buckwheat pancakes, hot dishes, etc.

Sodeb'O has been a loyal partner of off-shore racing, since 1998, with its common values of sharing, respect and discovery. It is proud to accompany the 30 French foreign skippers who've signed up to this great human and sporting adventure. The company would like to share this new round-the-world trip with a very wide audience. Sodeb'O's co-president, who knows what she's talking about, points out that this is "a world circumnavigation that should definitely not be taken lightly". This comment is all the more apt because, at the end of 2008, Thomas Coville, skipper of the Sodeb'O maxi trimaran, will attempt to beat the world record for single-handed, multihull world circumnavigations: "Whether you're racing or setting records, sailing around the world is an exceptional athletic, technological, and human challenge. It's a true lesson in life that can even be relevant in the corporate world".

Websites : www.sodebo.fr and www.sodebo-voile.com