One year later: major scientific findings thanks to the skippers’ commitment

As part of a major international oceanographic research programme, led by the Vendée Globe and UNESCO and coordinated operationally with leading scientific organisations such as Ifremer, the sailors have put their round-the-world race at the service of science. Their aim: to collect essential data in areas that remain under-sampled, in order to better understand how the ocean is changing in the context of climate change. 

10 Argo floats deployed in the middle of the South Atlantic

In late November 2024, ten skippers – Yoann Richomme, Oliver Heer, Kojiro Shiraishi, Sam Goodchild, Sébastien Marsset, Guirec Soudée, Maxime Sorel, Szabi Weores, Jingkun Xu and Fabrice Amedeo – each deployed an Argo float supplied by Ifremer.

These 2-metre-tall instruments, packed with technology, measure the temperature and salinity of the water from the surface down to a depth of 2,000 metres.

These 10 deployments alone account for nearly a quarter of the French deployments carried out in the Atlantic in 2024, as part of the Argo network, which comprises around 4,000 floats worldwide. 

350 profiles already collected in a year 

The buoys deployed during the 2024 Vendée Globe will collect data every 10 days for a period of eight years! In their first year of operation, these buoys have already transmitted more than 350 temperature and salinity profiles  

This data is crucial: it helps identify the origin of water masses, better understand ocean currents and refine climate models. In particular, the floats have helped fill an observation gap in a strategic area between 20 and 30° South in the Atlantic, a region that is rarely visited. 

Continuous measurements around the globe 

In addition to the Argo floats, several skippers had installed automatic measuring devices to record data throughout their race, from the start line to the finish line. Among them were Fabrice Amedeo, Boris Herrmann, Oliver Heer and Nicolas Lunven.

Their boats were fitted with a system that continuously measured surface parameters (including temperature and salinity).

At the same time, a lighter and more innovative sensor – the TSG Gaillard prototype, developed in collaboration with scientific teams – was tested for the first time in extreme conditions by Romain Attanasio and Antoine Cornic.

Initial analyses show excellent consistency between the various devices, confirming the robustness of the instruments and paving the way for wider deployment.  

Using a solo round-the-world race as a full-scale laboratory presents a rare scientific opportunity, particularly in hard-to-reach areas such as the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, where satellite data often needs to be validated by in situ measurements. 

One ambition: a fleet fully equipped for scientific research by 2028 

Building on the results achieved in 2024–2025, the Vendée Globe remains committed to its ambition: to make the race a powerful accelerator of oceanographic knowledge. Coordinated by OceanOps, the hub of the global ocean observation programme, the skippers are helping to collect data that is essential to understanding the climate system.

Looking ahead to the 2028 Vendée Globe, the objective is clear: to equip 100% of the fleet with scientific instruments, linked to international programmes coordinated under the banner of UNESCO and in collaboration with major research organisations.