Vendée Globe

With the launch this Wednesday of his monohull FONCIA in Port la Forêt, Michel Desjoyeaux is beginning a new season, the highlight of which will be the event, which thirty skippers are in the process of preparing and training for: the Vendée Globe 2008-2009. A gruelling schedule lies ahead for the winner of the 2000-2001 edition.

Four months were barely enough to get the 60-foot monohull, Foncia back in shape following the Transat Ecover BtoB. Damaged, when she collided with a fishing vessel a few dozen miles from the finish in Port-la-Forêt, Michel Desjoyeaux’s yacht entered the yard as soon as she finished in mid-December. «We haven’t fine-tuned her or carried out any modifications, apart from the repair work, with the exception of a new pulley system in the cockpit to make sail changes easier. We haven’t adopted the idea of fitting her with strakes, sticking out of the hull between the bow and the mast 50 cm above the waterline, which other Farr designs have laminated to the sides. I’m waiting to see in the Artemis Transat, if the device is a good idea… » explained Michel Desjoyeaux at the launch of his monohull. The launch went without hitch and her mast was stepped immediately afterwards, before Foncia was moored in the new area specially built for the Imoca monohulls in the Port-la-Forêt marina.


As early as this weekend, the Breton skipper will be clocking up the miles to carry out some checks and adjustments, before taking part in a single-handed training session organised by the Port-la-Forêt Ocean Racing Centre (21st to 24th April) alongside eight other skippers, and then heading off to Douarnenez for the Petit Navire Challenge (25th to 27th April). Following that, it will be time to sail off to Plymouth for the start of The Artemis Transat, the legendary race (the former Ostar) between England and Boston that Michel Desjoyeaux won four years ago aboard a multihull. After that, the monohull will be setting sail to tackle the SNSM Record starting in Saint-Nazaire (22nd June), an event that Michel Desjoyeaux also won last year! The rest of the schedule will concentrate on the preparations for the non-stop single-handed round the world voyage without assistance: the Vendée Globe.

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