Fingers crossed — because the French government could yet intervene to stop it — it now looks reasonably certain that this year’s Vendée Globe solo round-the-world race will happen, starting on November 8.

The skippers and their boats are arriving at the start port of Les Sables-d’Olonne on the French Biscay coast. But the atmosphere is anything but normal with France in partial national lockdown and with the teams facing the very real — and terrifying prospect — that if their skipper tests positive for Covid-19 before the start, then he or she will not be able to join the race.

The one caveat is that if they are found to be clear of the virus within a 10-day window after the start then they can set off. But the Covid rule on participation — which to some seems absurd in a solo round-the-world race — is a sword of Damocles hanging over all 33 skippers from eight nations, whether they be superstars at the front of the fleet or those on limited budgets sailing older boats in the lower reaches of the field.

The dilemma in the next couple of weeks is that skippers still need to fulfill media commitments and to work as hard as they can for their sponsors — albeit behind face masks and Perspex screens — but they cannot afford to take risks that might compromise years of work to get to the start line of the toughest race in world sailing.

From an international perspective (and in a field with no American entry) the big story of this year’s race has to be the fortunes of the British IMOCA veteran Alex Thomson. He will start the Vendée Globe in his latest Hugo Boss-sponsored $7 million vessel among the hot favorites, alongside three French sailors, Jérémie Beyou on Charal, Thomas Ruyant on LinkedOut and Charlie Dalin on Apivia.

Thomson is a phenomenon not just in sailing but in sport. (His story, by the way, is a great sell to friends who may not be interested in sailing as such, but love a good sporting drama). The single most remarkable fact about him —given his high profile and his undoubted ability — is that in more than 16 years sailing in the IMOCA ranks, he has never won a race.

Not only that but his career has been a roller-coaster mixing moments of success and fulfillment with the most appalling dramas and setbacks. In the former category the 46-year-old married Briton who has two young children, has set distance records over 24 hours in solo and crewed formats; he finished the 2007 Barcelona World Race in second alongside Australian sailor Andrew Cape and he finished the last two Vendée Globes in third and second place respectively.

In the latter category it is hard to know where to begin. Thomson retired from his first Vendée Globe in 2004 after the boat developed a hole in the deck; he was rescued in the southern Indian Ocean by fellow Briton Mike Golding in the 2006 Velux Five Oceans round-the-world race; his 2008 Vendée campaign was visited by catastrophe when his then new HUGO BOSS was hit by a French fishing boat while anchored outside Les Sables d’Olonne. He subsequently retired from the race after 24 hours. He retired from the 2009 Transat Jacques Vabre after hitting something in the water and abandoned the same race in 2015 when another new Hugo Boss capsized when he and Spanish sailor Guillermo Altadill had to be rescued by helicopter off the north coast of Spain.

You might expect the pattern of disasters to abate as he got older but the last few years have been no different to those preceding them. In November 2018 Thomson suffered possibly the most humiliating of all reverses that have been inflicted upon him — or, in this case, that he has brought upon himself — when after leading the solo 3,500-mile Route du Rhum almost the entire way from the start in St Malo in France, he decided to take a nap 65 miles from the finish at Guadeloupe. His boat ended up on the rocks when he failed to wake up and although he crossed the line first, he was demoted to third place because he had used his engine to save his boat. To say he had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory on that occasion would be a massive understatement.

As if that was not enough, his build-up to this race has been heavily hampered not just by Covid-19 but by the fact that he and co-skipper Neal McDonald had to cut his new boat’s keel away in mid-Atlantic during last year’s Transat Jacques Vabre after they hit a whale at high speed. Ever since then the team has been playing catch-up to get the futuristic-looking VPLP/Pete Hobson-designed Hugo Boss race-ready for what will be his fifth attempt at the Vendée Globe.

Throughout it all Hugo Boss has stood by him, the German fashion house pumping millions into their British racer who has repaid the favor by running a disciplined and professional team whose ethos has seemed somewhat at odds with the results it has achieved on the water. And Thomson has been a good media property over the years, often in the headlines and scoring highly with his series of spectacular video stunts – his Keelwalk, Mastwalk and Skywalks – that have projected the sport well beyond the hardcore sailing audience.

“Charismatic, super-confident, fiercely competitive and a little bit flash,” as one profile described him recently, Thomson has remained remarkably level-headed, taking his setbacks and successes with equal aplomb. But there is no doubt in my mind that the weight of the load he carries — of not having won anything — is influencing what he does and what he says and what he might do on the racecourse this November. In the early years some of his disasters were blamed by critics on a reckless streak – something he denies, though he admits he pushes his boats hard – but an older and (possibly) more cautious Thomson is haunted by the sheer scale and repetitiveness of the setbacks he has had to contend with.

In the build–up to this race the psychology for him has been interesting. He has made no secret of the fact that there is only one result he is after. Having finished third and then second, only a win will do and that places its own very unique pressure on him — leaving a wide arc of potential failure — and it may well influence what he does on the racecourse.

“For me he has a target on his back,” commented the British team manager of Thomas Ruyant’s campaign, Marcus Hutchinson. “He’s here to win and if he’s not leading or makes a wrong call or a mistake and has to catch-up, that will be difficult psychologically — you wonder whether his motivation will be there to keep going.”

Thomson has chosen in the build-up to keep well away from his rivals, training and preparing in isolation in Britain from the team base at Gosport in Portsmouth. The first couple of days of last year’s Transat Jacques Vabre apart, he has not lined up his black foiling flyer against his rivals and has chosen to avoid all IMOCA events in the last few months — like the Vendée-Arctique-Les Sables D’Olonne Race and the Défi Azimut 48-hour race.

RELATED: Hugo Boss Skywalk

In France, this has made him look to the sailing public like an outside invader, plotting to take the prize from their French heroes and become the first Briton and first non-French skipper to win the Vendée Globe. Instead of joining in with the others, Hugo Boss has been out playing on its own as Thomson and his team push the numbers ever higher on the performance spectrum.

When you ask him whether he has put himself at a disadvantage by staying away from the fleet, he sounds confident enough. His argument is that the team knows where their starting point was — and that was a super-quick boat that finished second in the last Vendée Globe, despite losing one of its foils after just two weeks (that boat is now owned by 11th Hour Racing led by Charlie Enright and Mark Towill). He says that, with that base point, they have made huge strides. But they are gambling that the others have not made even more progress during a build-up in which all the teams have been hampered by lack of time on the water.

The lone wolf approach could well be replicated on the water in the early stages of the race when, in the past, Thomson has shown no fear about leaving the fleet and sailing off on his own. Sometimes this high-risk strategy has paid off, sometimes not, but it would be no surprise to see him tack away in the first week as the leaders head down the Atlantic.

For armchair sailors, the Thomson conundrum certainly makes for fascinating watching. It’s going to be like a global version of the first cross in Cup matches of old — who will be higher and faster? Right now we simply have no idea and it will depend on all sorts of variables in these super-sensitive foiling thoroughbreds.

“I’d love you to write that he’s going to win it and he’s going to put everyone to shame,” added Hutchinson. “The question is though, is he going to be quicker than the others and for how long and at what angles?”

One aspect that you notice when listening to Thomson talk is how technical and numbers-driven his mind is. This team is not dreaming; it is drilled by hard performance stats. Looking like a cross between a spaceship, a weapons system and a submarine, with its fully-enclosed cockpit and sleek black lines, HUGO BOSS is now sailing with its second set of foils and Thomson is confident they have optimized it in just the right way — by not being too ambitiou

He has never said it, but you have to think that this is likely to be his last Vendée campaign. It’s either a win now or he walks away (though I’ve thought he might throw in the towel earlier and been wrong). Not just as a fellow Brit, but as someone who has watched his trials and tribulations and occasional successes over 20 years, I would love to see him be handed a full deck of cards and romp his way round the world to make history. But I will be crossing everything until the very last mile on the last record-breaking day.

On his way to Les Sables in the new boat, Thomson summed-up his feelings as the moment of truth draws near once again.

“This is 20 years of my life,” he said, “So yes, this is what we’ve all been waiting for and what we’ve all been working toward. Obviously, the goal is to go out there and win it. But to get there, first you have to finish. And this race is very, very tough to finish. But, if we can get to that finish line, then I’m sure we’ll be in contention for the win. A win would certainly validate everything that we as a team, together with our partners, have put into this journey.”

I would only add that a win in this Vendée Globe would dramatically and completely transform a career that needs this one epic victory to give it the stamp of greatness.

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British sailing team Alex Thomson Racing announced the completion of its new racing yacht, which it hopes will lead the team to victory in the 2020-21 Vendée Globe round-the-world race.

The IMOCA boat, Hugo Boss, is the product of more than two years of painstaking design and build work undertaken by the ocean racing team, together with more than 100 naval architects, engineers and boat builders.

“What makes us one of the most exciting teams in this sport is that we display the courage to lead,” says skipper Alex Thomson as Hugo Boss was lowered into the water for the very first time. “We innovate, we push boundaries and we’re not afraid to do things differently. We accept that, in doing so, we might not always be right. But we are certainly not afraid to explore things that have never been done before.”

Designed in partnership by the Alex Thomson Racing technical team — led by Design Manager Pete Hobson – and French naval architects VPLP, the revolutionary new boat was built in Hampshire, England, close to the ocean racing team’s home base of Gosport.

Spearheaded by world-renowned British boat builder Jason Carrington, the build itself began in June 2018 and has involved more than 50,000 hours of specialist construction.

Hugo Boss — the name carried by all six of the team’s previous IMOCA boats — is a purpose-built 60-foot carbon fiber yacht, weighing 7.6 tonnes and featuring state-of-the-art hydrofoils. The boat’s deck and coach roof, meanwhile, feature solar paneling, an addition which the team hopes will allow it to achieve its ambition of sailing around the world without the use of fossil fuels.

The boat’s striking black carbon hull — with its significantly streamlined bow — has now been made public, a demonstrable architectural step forward from the team’s previous iterations. The hull’s glossy black finish echoes the sleek brand identity of the team’s Title Partner, Hugo Boss, whose Boss brand logo has been cleverly created from silver carbon fiber and embedded into the hull itself.

The distinctive black hull is in stark contrast to accents of fluorescent pink which can be seen across the boat’s coach roof, keel and rudder. Devised by Industrial Designer Karim Rashid – the man behind the brand identity of the boat – the bespoke flurotone is a first for the IMOCA class.

The boat will also feature never before seen on-board technologies, developed alongside Technology Partner Nokia Bell Labs, which is incubating this work for the sailing team, in keeping with its research for high-performance mission-critical applications.

“This sport is no longer just about qualified naval architecture and competent ocean racing” said Stewart Hosford, CEO of Alex Thomson Racing. “It’s a design and engineering challenge at the highest level. It’s about bringing together the best in the world in every single area, in the relentless pursuit of excellence, of perfection.”

Thomson and his team will now undertake a period of on-water commissioning and testing before the new Hugo Boss is officially launched and christened in September. From there, the boat will debut in the doublehanded Transat Jacques Vabre race in October 2019 before Thomson undertakes his first solo race in the New York to Vendée in June 2020, the penultimate race in the IMOCA calendar before the Vendée Globe itself in November 2020.

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After yesterday’s extraordinary destruction that forced five boats to double back to Newport, Rhode Island to effect appendage repairs, overnight British skipper Alex Thomson and his new steed Hugo Boss have pulled into the lead of the New York – Vendée (Les Sables d’Olonne) Race presented by Currency House and SpaceCode.

“I think I have just got a quick boat!” explained Thomson of how he had managed this in last night’s 20 knot conditions. “She’s a bit narrower than the other foilers and a bit lighter and I think that is what did it. It was rather pleasant apart from the amount of water which comes over the boat!”

During his 14 year tenure in the IMOCA class, Thomson has had his fair share of disaster so it came as huge relief that Hugo Boss passed through yesterday’s waterborne minefield without damage.

“I wish I’d had a bit of wood to touch,” Thomson admitted this morning. “I had four collisions myself. I had two collisions with the foil, one of which was very very hard, but I couldn’t see any damage. Then I hit something relatively softly with the keel and I had two other hits, but my kick-up rudder system worked very well. I was extremely worried and I am very happy to have got out of that. Every boat which turned back I saw them go past. I am very sorry for them. It is very harsh after so much preparation and work.”

Jérémie Beyou, skipper of second-placed foil-born Maître CoQ, this morning echoed these sentiments: “I stopped foiling when everyone hit the UFOs. I freaked out, I put it back out later. You have to hang on in these situations – I spent the day and the evening on the deck. It all went well for me.”

Yesterday the frontrunners crossed the continental shelf and are now out into the North Atlantic proper. While there is an area of high pressure directly ahead of the boats at present, this is forecast to move south over the course of today, causing the wind to veer into the west-southwest and the boats to start ‘VMG running’ (ie downwind).

“We gybe tomorrow morning and then we head into the depression and try and get across it before we get hammered,” continued Thomson of what lies ahead. “There is a lot of wind coming, but hopefully I’ll be ahead of that.”

Meanwhile Thomson is reminding himself of what it is like to be leading. “It is great to be in front but I am very conscious of the boats and guys that are behind me and their calibre and experience and miles. I’m not getting my hopes up.”

Since the first sched at 0400 UTC this morning, when Hugo Boss was 7.2 miles ahead of second placed Maître CoQ, at 1530 UTC her lead had increased to 23.6 miles.

This morning Jean-Pierre Dick’s StMichel-Virbac was the fifth boat to reach Newport, Rhode Island, with foil damage, but she was also the first boat to leave again at around 1400 UTC. Of the four remaining boats Armel Le Cléac’h on Banque Populaire VIII has announced his retirement from the race while Yann Eliès’ Queguiner-Leucémie Espoir is expected to depart this evening and news is still awaited on Safran which sustained the most severe damage of the five to her foil which, like Banque Populaire‘s, was knocked back in its case.

When the collision occurred Safran’s skipper Morgan Lagravière said he had immediately tacked the boat as the hole caused by the impact with the UFO had caused his boat to flood. “In perhaps 20 seconds there was maybe one tonne of water inside the boat. It took me maybe two hours with the pump to empty it.”

Yesterday afternoon Conrad Colman’s 100% Natural Energy departed New York harbour officially starting the New York – Vendée (Les Sables d’Olonne) Race presented by Currency House and SpaceCode. StMichel Virbac pulled back out on to the race track astern of 100% Natural Energy.

The Delma Record will be awarded at the finish to the skipper who has covered the most miles during a 24 hour period. The skipper to achieve this will receive a Delma Shell Star Automatique. Today’s highest daily run was managed by Alex Thomson and Hugo Boss, who sailed 475 miles at an average speed of 19.8 knots up until 12:15 today.

Casualty Count

Queguiner-Leucémie Espoir – Yann Eliès Banque Populaire VIII – Armel Le Cléac’h Safran – Morgan Lagravière No Way Back – Pieter Heerema St Michel-Virbac – Jean-Pierre Dick

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Via Alex Thomson Racing

British round-the-world sailor, Alex Thomson, has undertaken yet another breathtaking stunt with his racing yacht, the HUGO BOSS. The Skywalk is the third in a trilogy that pushes the daredevil skipper to his limits and beyond.

Chasing the HUGO BOSS yacht upwind using a 33 foot kite, Thomson attaches himself to a line in the water, which is fixed to the top of the mast. It pulls tight as the speed of the yacht propels him 280 feet in the air – almost as tall as the Statue of Liberty and double the height of the yacht. At the peak of his flight, Thomson releases himself and, using only the kite, expertly controls his descent back down to the water. He lands the kiteboard in style, while wearing a perfectly cut, water-resistant BOSS suit.

Thomson is passionate about all things wind-powered, and so kite surfing was the natural choice when planning to complete the trilogy of stunts that began with the Keelwalk in 2012. “The previous two stunts that we carried out – the Mastwalk and the Keelwalk – were so exciting we just knew we couldn’t stop there. We were all in agreement; we wanted to do something even bigger and better”, Thomson comments. Videos of the Keelwalk – a challenge which involved Alex walking along the orange keel of his racing yacht, while heeled over and sailing at high speed – and the Mastwalk – which saw Alex climb the 98-foot mast of the HUGO BOSS and dive from the very top into the water – have now been viewed by more than 4.5 million people worldwide.

Thomson will compete in the pinnacle event of the Ocean Masters race Calendar – the Vendee Globe – later this year, a race which begins on November 6th. The non-stop, solo, unassisted, round the world race takes approximately 80 days to complete. In the last edition of the race, back in 2013, Thomson finished in third place. This time around he is determined to be the first Brit to win the prestigious title.

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Via Cristian Donoso

After 10 years and 13,000 miles at sea, the original Hugo Boss has been spotted once again.

A couple of weeks ago, during a kayaking expedition along the desolate western coast of Patagonia, the very first Hugo Boss Imoca 60 skipped by Alex Thomson was discovered inside the Bernardo O’Higgins National Park. The yacht was lost in 2006 during the 5 Oceans Race nearly 1000 miles south of South Africa. To reach the Chilean coast, Hugo Boss traveled more than 13,000 miles adrift, pushed by the wind and currents across the Indian and Pacific oceans.

Alex Thomson continued to sail several Imoca 60s bearing the Hugo Boss namesake after the loss of the first vessel. Earlier last year, during the Transat Jacques Vabre, the newest boat suffered a breakdown and began taking on water. The crew was rescued and the hull was salvaged shortly after. The boat is currently being repaired and is set to relaunch in a few short weeks in time to train for the upcoming Vendee Globe.

The crew of Alex Thomson racing has reached out to offer their assistance in the salvage of the original vessel.

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