The sailor Bertrand de Broc has decided to relaunch his campaign “Your name around the world” in order to line up at the start of the next Vendée Globe on Saturday 10th November. The sailor from Quimper is trying to get together a budget of 1.5 million euros by offering 30,000 people the opportunity to contribute 50€. In the 1996-1997 Vendée Globe, De Broc managed to get the money for his project with more than 6000 people signing their names on the hull of his boat.

Bruno Retailleau, President of the SAEM Vendée and everyone involved in organising the Vendée Globe wish you every happiness in 2012.

The Vendée Globe has just launched a competition, which is open to the general public to offer an invitation for two people to attend the start of the Vendée Globe on Saturday 10th November 2012. All you have to do is answer three simple questions about the class of boat taking part in the Vendée Globe, the name of the only skipper to have won the race twice and the town and French department, which host the finish and you could be the lucky winner and experience the excitement of the start.

To enter, click HERE

Bernard Stamm’s 60-foot Cheminées Poujoulat, which had to be abandoned at sea on 7th November after suffering a serious ingress of water, was finally pinpointed yesterday evening by a trawler from the Azores. On board, Bernard Stamm and Gautier Levisse, Cheminées Poujoulat’s boat captain, had set off on Wednesday afternoon to look for her. The monohull with her hull full of water is currently being towed at slow speed (1.5 knots) towards the Azores. The trawler is due to arrive some time tomorrow on the island of Terceira.

With almost 18 months to go to the start of the next Vendée Globe, the event can already be said to be a huge success on the net in particular on social networking sites like Facebook, where the Vendée Globe page is already bringing together almost 5000 fans. The potential of what is an extremely popular event means that the Vendée Globe fits in perfectly with the massive development in social networking. We can be certain that the Vendée Globe “family”, which is already a big one, as large numbers are already following the latest news of the Vendée Globe on the official website, will continue to grow in size as we draw closer to the big day on the calendar, 10th November 2012, which will mark the start of the 7th Vendée Globe.

The Vendée Council has won top prize in the 2009 marketing awards organised by the French magazine Stratégies and Sportfive for its communications for the 2008-2009 Vendée Globe. The jury, made up of twelve professionals from the world of sports studied almost 50 communications plans and awarded six prizes, 7 special awards and one top prize. As well as this honour, the Vendée Council was also rewarded in the category “overall communications strategy” for all its work around the event with the public relations operations and the educational package.

Communications around the Vendée Globe can divided up into several sections. The first was the start village in the harbour in Les Sables-d’Olonne three weeks before the sailors set off, which attracted 1.7 million people. The second feature was the school’s pack, which was distributed to around a thousand children in the department. Finally, the most spectacular element of the communications plan was the installation on the Montparnasse Tower of a giant display promoting the Vendée Globe on a surface of 3300 m².

Organised by the SEM Vendée with as its main commercial partner, the company, Sodéb’O, the Vendée Globe is considered today as one of the three major sailing events in the world with the America’s Cup and the Volvo Ocean Race. The non-stop single-handed round the world race offers a lot of media coverage and the economic impact is huge, as the President of the Vendée Council, Philippe de Villiers explains: “Today we are at a ratio, where for each euro invested the result is worth ten times that in terms of media coverage and the economic impact. But the race goes beyond a simple competition, as it involves sporting achievements, incredible physical feats and a human adventure on the world’s largest stadium – the sea.”