Around the World in 84 days 3 hours 9 minutes and 8 seconds

Michel Desjoyeaux has made history ... and France has been watching. Have you?
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On the afternoon of Sunday, February 1st, Desjoyeaux sailed his boat into the harbor in les Sables d'Olonne. He had set sail from the same port nearly three months ago ... there were 30 skippers on 30 boats. Today, more than half of those skippers have abandoned the race, and ten of them are scattered along the Atlantic between Cape Horn and France.


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This is the Vendée Globe.

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An around-the-world race. Alone. Each skipper must sail unaccompanied and unaided. If there is a problem with the boat at the beginning of the race, they can go back to start, fix it, and start over. Which is exactly what Desjoyeaux did ... he started two days behind the rest of the pack and sailed ahead of them to his second Vendée Globe victory.

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Others have not been so fortunate. Broken masts ... capsized boats ... some problems are insurmountable and the race must be abandoned.

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But on the whole, these are incredibly sturdy boats. They have to be, to withstand the rigor of months at sea, hurricane-force winds and waves that sometimes reach more than 30 feet in height.

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This is a picture of Desjoyeaux's boat. It's 60 feet long, the mast is nearly 92 feet high, and it weighs 18,700 pounds. Its upwind sail surface is 300 square meters, and its downwind sail surface is 600 square meters. This is how he managed to travel 28303.2 nautical miles at an average speed of 14.0 KTS.

In France, we've seen daily coverage of the race on the news since the start in November. Philipp logs on to the Vendée Globe web site (see link, above) every evening to check where everyone is, and to watch the videos that each skipper makes along the way. We've both got a favorite skipper, Samantha Davies of England.
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Sam Davies has got to be one of the coolest people in the world. Why? Well, for one thing, she's sailing around the world a race that's been called the Everest of off-shore sailing. For another thing, she's in third place. (not too shabby!) But mostly, because she's got an amazingly positive attitude. In the videos she makes, she's always laughing (even when being pelted with rain or when a random waves soaks her to the bone), making jokes, showing us cool stuff (like the flying fish that jump into her boat) and letting us in on her life in the boat (her rationing of candy in the week-by-week bags, her "CAUTION -- TOXIC" dirty laundry bag). Check out her site! And root her on ... she'll be sailing into port in a few days!

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