Sam Goodchild - the Vendée Arctique is not a race to be taken lightly
by Ed Gorman / IMOCA Globe Series 29 May 13:37 BST
Sam Goodchild © Maxime Horlaville / disobey / MACIF
With four wins in the last five races, just about everything Sam Goodchild touches in sailing right now turns to gold.
But as the IMOCA Globe Series defending champion prepares for the third edition of the Vendée Arctique-Les Sables D'Olonne, what is striking is how focused he is on continuing to improve his game and maintain his level of performance.
Speaking to the Class as he prepared for the race to the Arctic Circle and back, which starts from Les Sables d'Olonne on June 7th, the MACIF Santé Prévoyance skipper talked about honing his basic skills that most recently saw Goodchild sail to a convincing victory in the 2026 season-opening 1000 Race.
"For me, the Vendée Arctique is about getting back into single-handed sailing again which, on these boats, is a fairly tall order," Goodchild said. "So it's just getting back into reminding myself how to do things on my own, managing my sleep, managing my food, managing navigation and remembering that any little error can be expensive pretty quickly. So you need to make sure you're pretty well-prepared and well-polished because single-handed on these boats, there isn't much margin for error."
"So yeah, the pressure is on," he added. "And obviously we started the year well with the 1000 Race, and our aim is to finish it well with the Route du Rhum, and there is no reason not to do the same thing in the middle with the Vendée Arctique."
The Vendée Arctique has a fearsome reputation after the first two editions in 2020 and 2022 that both featured wild weather. It's a race that takes the IMOCA skippers - in this case a high quality fleet of nine boats - into largely unchartered territory, to a latitude in the northern hemisphere that is 10 degrees nearer the North Pole than Cape Horn is to the South Pole.
This time the race officer has set an intriguing course which simply requires the skippers to cross the Arctic Circle at 66 degrees North and then return to Les Sables d'Olonne. They can do this anywhere they like, though the likely turning point will be to the east of Iceland. It's a racecourse that will cross weather systems tracking eastwards in the north Atlantic and it is likely to be dominated by rapidly changing conditions with potentially violent winds, cold and fog, plus exclusion zones to protect whales and avoid ice.
Goodchild is certainly not under-estimating the challenge as he tackles the Vendée Arctique for the first time, one of seven skippers in the race in that category. "It's a race that goes into areas we don't sail in very often and that comes with its risks as well. I think it's a race not to be taken lightly...going that far north," he said.
In terms of the meteorology, Goodchild compares the Vendée Arctique to the opening of a transatlantic race constantly repeating itself: "You are cutting across the weather systems, so it's going to be very much like the start of a transatlantic race, but for eight-to-10 days in a row. It's not like the Route du Rhum or the Transat Café L'OR, where you have a hard first 48 hours and then you are aiming for the Trade Winds, so normally within the first two or three days you get some sort of respite. This one could be relentless."
The fleet features some of the most talented newcomers to the IMOCA ranks as they continue their build-up to the Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe in November and the next Vendée Globe in 2028. Among them are Corentin Horeau on MACSF, Elodie Bonafous on Association Petits Princes-Quéguiner, the sistership to MACIF Santé Prévoyance, Violette Dorange on Initiatives-Coeur, Ambrogio Beccaria on Allagrande MAPEI and Francesca Clapcich on 11th Hour Racing. There are also two veterans of the last Vendée Arctique in Manuel Cousin on Coup de Pouce and Arnaud Boissières on April Marine-Recherche Co-Partenaire.
Arnaud Boissières is sailing the 2015-vintage VPLP Verdier former Hugo Boss and he says the Vendée Arctique is a vital step for him on his way to the Vendée Globe for a sixth time, having finished four previous editions, including 15th place in the last race in 2024-'25.
"For sure there are three or four steps to the Vendée Globe and the Vendée Arctique is one of them," said the 53-year-old skipper who is based at Les Sables d'Olonne. "The Vendée Arctique is the first step perhaps and the second one will be the Route du Rhum. But it is a very important step to demonstrate to myself that I can go and do a very fast race and good race."
Boissières was forced to retire from the last Vendée Arctique not far from the finish line of a shortened course off Iceland. He wants to put that behind him and talks of the new race as a chance for "revenge." And it's interesting to hear him talk about his boat preparation for this challenge.
"It's a long race and a very difficult one with very strong winds," he explained. "When you do the Vendée Globe you have a lot of time with 50 knots of wind, but in the Vendée Arctique it can be 50 knots either upwind or downwind, so this time I have prepared my boat not for the Vendée Arctique but for the Vendée Globe - it's a good lesson based on experience."
For Boissières starting from his home port makes this a special race and, as he continues his search for a new main sponsor, a strong finish inside the top-six would be ideal. "I think the best way to find a new sponsor is to do a race, to show your boat to other partners and to other sponsors," he said.
And he spoke too about what keeps driving him after all these years, having first competed in the Vendée Globe back in 2008. "It's because I love it," he said. "I love sailing, I love pushing my limits. And I love pushing my limits in single-handed sailing when you have a boat that is a lot of fun to sail and with a good history."
Goodchild, meanwhile, will be starting the Vendée Arctique as the out-and-out favourite as he looks for his second consecutive victory of the season. Inevitably this brings a certain pressure to bear on him, but he seems to be taking it in his stride.
"Most of that pressure comes from myself to be honest," he said. "Obviously the people around the project, who work on it and support it, enjoy winning and when you win, it's a pleasure for everyone. But apart from that, it's just a case of getting my head down and doing as I have done before. It doesn't always go to plan, but we've obviously got a blueprint which isn't far off right. But that doesn't stop us asking the good questions because that's what offshore racing is - trying to do it better."
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