Over a 30 years history standards and safety features on the Vendée Globe have significantly increased and improved. Some of these positive changes are directly as the result of dramatic incidents, others are the product of the combined experience and ideas of skippers and race managers.

New rules and regulations have to employ a whole raft of safety and security measures, all helping avoid collisions or reduce their effect, avoiding heavy winds and ice, to be able to better communicate with those on land and rescuers, training sailors to improve their medical and safety knowledge and to require them to be of a standard commensurate with the Vendée Globe.

For Juan Kouyoumdjian, the designer of three VO70 Volvo Ocean Race winners, ABN AMRO 1, Ericsson 4 and Groupama 4, as well as record breaking monohulls such as Rambler 88 and Speedboat as well as Olympic gold medal winning Finn and Star designs, the Vendée Globe represents a pinnacle challenge not yet fulfilled.

Always a sailor, a staunch advocate for the environment but also a writer and a columnist, Isabelle Autisseir takes on her different roles with the same passion and objectivity. Forty years on from her first offshore race, and now more than thirty years on from her participation in the Vendée Globe, she is still as active and driven as ever when it comes to what matters in her life.