Team Malizia: The Vendée Globe Race goes ahead

The Vendée Globe Race goes ahead © Pierre Bouras

With the Covid-19 pandemic causing the race village in Les Sables D'Olonne to close for visitors on 30th October, there have been a lot of last-minute changes.

However, most importantly, it is confirmed that in seven days Boris Herrmann will be able to set off on the race of a lifetime, around the world, alone and non-stop in the toughest sporting challenge, the Vendee Globe.

The 39-year-old German skipper will race in a full lap around the globe starting in France, through the Southern Ocean at speeds of up to 70 kph on his yacht Seaexplorer - Yacht Club de Monaco for over 70 days. The competition will be fierce but Boris has a good chance of holding a top position when reviewing his previous races.

With the backing of our partners, The Yacht Club de Monaco, Kuehne & Nagel, The Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation, CMA CGM, MSC and Hapag Lloyd, Boris will be measuring ocean CO2 data in the most remote ocean areas via his onboard SubCtech laboratory. This crucial ocean data will be transmitted live to shore and will be analysed by scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology, Geomar, Kiel and Ifremer. In partnership with IOC-UNESCO Boris will also deploy an Argo float on his journey. Both these measurements will allow scientists to better understand the impact of climate change on our Ocean.

Speaking from the race village in Les Sables D'Olonne where he has arrived from Germany yesterday Boris commented "I am so glad to be back at my boat and with my team. After years of preparation and training, everything is ready, down to the last detail. I am hungry to start! We all very much regret that our friends and partners cannot be here with us, in these emotional last days. But we will do our utmost to share with you live impressions of the start as well as of my whole journey around the world."

The 33 skippers competing in the race will all be entering confinement on 1st November 2020 after carrying out PCR and Serology tests on 31st October 2020. The four crew members that will be allowed to accompany Boris on 8th November on his boat until minutes before the start will also have to carry out this testing and will go into quarantine on 6th November, 48 hours before the start. These sensible measures have been introduced by the race organisation in order to maintain maximum health security for the skippers.

We have had confirmation that no guests will be able to join us for the start, but we want to have you, our fans, viewers, and partners as close to the action as possible. To do this, we have created various tools in order to let you experience this adventure firsthand.

We created RAW content area on website homepage. Here we will be posting all the unedited unfiltered real content from the boat, directly as we receive it, including, videos, voice notes, photos and texts. You will be able to follow Boris' journey including his highs and lows without any outside interference. Our Seaexplorer - Yacht Club de Monaco tracker is where you can follow Boris around the world and see where he is ranked compared to his competitors. This great map allows you to monitor his distance to the finish, his average speed, his current speed and it even provides a wind overlay so you can see what conditions he is battling against.

The dashboard is for those of you who want to know more. It contains all the technical data coming from the boat and is updated every 10 minutes. This includes the current boat speed, wind data, trajectory and heel angle. We have also added our SubCTech ocean pack data here so you can see the salinity, water temperature and CO2 levels in the water around Boris. The team's social media channels allow you to watch the best content, interact with other viewers and follow the journey from Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.

The Vendee Globe Youtube Channel will be streaming the live aerial view on 8th November, the start is 13:02 CET but the content will start at 8 am with the skippers' arrival at the dock. Both our Facebook channels, Team Malizia and Boris Herrmann Racing will be showing the start too with a live feed inside the boat on the stern camera so you are effectively in the boat with Boris.