With six months to go before the start of the Vendée Globe in Les Sables d’Olonne, the Vendée SAEM has announced it had signed an agreement with three new partners - Météo France, Bodard and Vendée Tech – who, each in their own way, will contribute to the success of the 2012-2013 edition.

For the seventh time in the history of the race, the Vendée Globe organization team had decided to put its faith in Météo France, that is becoming an official services provider of the 2012-2013 edition and whose expertise in worldwide marine forecast will benefit the race direction and the skippers.


This year, Bodard is becoming a Vendée Globe partner for the second time after the 2004-2005 edition as an Official Supplier of the race. The Vendée Globe organization will use the high-quality modular constructions of Bodard, a company that embodies time and space control.
 

As for Vendée Tech, specializing in office automation and 2012-2013 Vendée Globe official services provider, they will once again equip the organization, the race direction and the media with everything they need to work in the best environment in Les Sables d’Olonne and in the Paris Montparnasse CP.
 

When a sailing star meets a team handball star... On Saturday, Kito de Pavant will welcome recent French league winner, Montpellier player Nikola Karabatic, on board his Groupe Bel yacht. The two men, who know each other quite well since they worked out together over the winter, will go for an offshore sailing session off Port Camargue (Gard).

Kito de Pavant is currently preparing for the Europa Warm'Up - Starting on May 19 - and of course for the Vendée Globe. He sailed to Minorca (Balearic Islands) and back these past two days, along with Gwen Gbick, his sports manager, and Hervé Giorsetti, his technical director. « We had a great south wind that we had to wait for yesterday (editor's note: Thursday) off Minorca but that eventually allowed us to sail fast and to go through all the scheduled tests during the night. », the Groupe Bel wrote on his website. 

Despite a gas shortage, the Southern yachtsman is happy with these two days of sailing that allowed him to run all the sails tests. « We will have difficult choices to make regarding what sails we'll have on board during the Vendée Globe because the ones we tried are all very good but we can only have ten in the sails hold! », de Pavant explains. The French skipper will definitely have a busy summer as he is planning on trying to beat the solo Mediterranean record, which he could not attempt this week because of a too strong south wind. 

As each of the other IMOCA competitors are back in their home ports to prepare for the Europa Warm'up race, Arnaud Boissières and Marc Guillemot have remained in Rosmeur, a south Finistère harbor. After respectively finishing 6th and 3rd of the first act of the Grand Prix Guyader in Douarnenez, the two monohulls will compete in the second act of the competition on Thursday, starting at 10.30AM. Two offshore races are scheduled on Thursday and Friday, followed by the weekend's « Nautical Challenge » - 3-nautical mile timed speed races - with a first leg on Saturday.

The second part of the Grand Prix will also feature Jérémie Beyou and his boat, Maître Coq, and will allow Arnaud Boissières to welcome players from Nantes Handball Club on board his 60-foot yacht. 

After her boat was christened in Brest on April 6 by its godmother Laury Thilleman, it is now Sam Davies' turn to be in the spotlight in Vendée. The yachtswoman and her sailing team are being celebrated in Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie between April 28 and May 1 in a fun and convivial event bringing together Vendée-based sailing fans and partners. A great way to show their support for Samantha who will be at the start of the 2012-2013 Vendée Globe on November 10 in Les Sables d'Olonne. 

The event features booths, various activities organized around Sam and her yacht, autograph sessions, presentation of partners' activities, free lilly of the valley and, as the highlight of the event on Monday morning at 11.30, the benediction of Savéol by Bishop Rézeau. Bruno Retailleau, President of th eVendée General Concil, will also attend. 

Marc Guillemot has been very busy since his monohull Safran was launched on March 16. The skipper completed two long offshore training sessions, sailing more than 1,200 nautical miles in April only. He first went for 500 nautical miles in « almost solo » configuration with Pierre Bourcier before sailing 720 more nautical miles solo between La Trinité-sur-Mer and a conventional spot northwest of Ouessant. These two sessions taught him a lot and he found them « very positive ». « I was able to test everything I wanted to test and listed the elements that still needed improvement. During the first session with Pierre, we worked on the pilots a lot. Then the second session was shorter than scheduled as I had to stop about a hundred miles north of Ouessant and turn back because of a very strong disturbing noise in the rigging. I felt like I was trapped inside the guitar of a crazy rocker. So I came back, we looked at what had happened and worked to find out how to solve the problem thanks to vibration frequency specialists. That’s exactly what those sailing sessions are for! », he said on the Safran sailing team website.
 

These were « tough » sailing sessions because of a very difficult sea and winds averaging 35 knots. But that’s precisely what made them « really interesting » because they provide sailing conditions very similar to the ones in the Vendée Globe: « That’s why I chose those routes and those timings, so I could get real solo race conditions. » And Guillemot was also able to go on with a series of tests (on sailing instruments and sails configuration, among other things) as well as validations (mast reliability) on the boat. He is satisfied with his training plans and says he is « right on schedule » regarding the goals he has set for himself. Marc Guillemot also talked about his first competition, the Grand Prix Guyader in Douarnenez, starting on Monday. Two major sailing figures will join his crew: Karine Fauconnier and Pascal Bidégorry. But he still has his mind set on the Vendée Globe since, « Just like every time Safran starts a race, we’re going for the victory! But we’ll also compete against other IMOCA yachts such as Macif, Banque populaire or PRB. And that will definitely be interesting too. »
 

You just cannot compete in a race as demanding as the Vendée Globe without a serious and thorough preparation, for the boat as well as for the skipper. It is therefore a period of intense training and busy schedule that will start in early May for Swiss skipper Dominique Wavre and his monohull Mirabaud. No Labor Day weekend break in the Mirabaud Sailing Team’s schedule but a series of training sessions at sea are planned instead. This will be a key period in the Vendée Globe preparation.

« In the first part of the training, our goal will be to work on all the little details that need adjustments after all the renovation work that was done over the winter, Wavre explains. The second period will be all about testing the sails and all the possible configurations in various wind and sea conditions. Then it will be time for us to work on each and every one of the operations and maneuvers. And our last task will be to focus on the boat’s speed polar, the theoretical speed the yacht can sail at depending on the wind. We’ll also use these sailing sessions to get more familiar with the autopilot, which is the most important tool for us during a round-the-world solo race. »