The SAEM Vendée, the organisers  of the Vendée Globe, will also organize the "Vendée Arctic - Les Sables-d'Olonne" which will be the first qualifying stage for the Vendée Globe 2024. The "Arctic Vendée Les Sables-d’Olonne" will leave from Port Olona on June 12, 2022.

Fifty three days before the start of the two handed race across the Atlantic, the Transat Jacques Vabre the summer of rest, preparation and maybe a little training is over and it is now time to get down to the serious business of preparing for the upcoming race.  Immediately there is a chance to check in and measure up, and to score points on the IMOCA Globe Series with the Défi Azimut. Fourteen duos will compete in the Défi Azimut - Lorient Agglomeration off the port on the bay of Morbihan, a good opportunity to fine-tune the optimisations and changes and to accumulate precious miles before the big one, the double-handed transatlantic race. The Défi Azimut starts next  Wednesday and offers a variety of different races

Almost eight months after crossing the finish line of the Vendée Globe first but taking second after time corrections Charlie Dalin has fully recovered.  Together with Paul Meilhat, he won the Rolex Fastnet Race comfortably in early August and the duo certainly establish themselves as favourites to win the Transat Jacques-Vabre in November.

Kevin Escoffier became famous on the last Vendée Globe for all the wrong reasons. Rescued by Jean Le Cam after his IMOCA PRB broke up spectacularly early in the Southern Oceans, the episode overshadows the fact that Escoffier was very much in contention in what, after all, was just his second ever solo IMOCA race, only two years after he made the jump from crewed round the world races and record setting. Now the 41 year old racer from Saint Malo is looking to put the record straight on the next edition. With long time Vendée Globe supporters PRB, Escoffier has taken a pragmatic short cut to having a new boat on the water as quickly as possible, taking over a part build Guillaume Verdier designed IMOCA which was to be raced crewed in The Ocean Race. The boat is being finished by Jason Carrington Boats in England. The Vendée Globe website caught up with Kevin in Palma, Mallorca at the Copa del Rey where he was in his role as an ambassador for North Sails clothing.

Belgian solo skipper Denis Van Weynbergh knows only too well the disappointment of having to pull the plug on a Vendée Globe programme because of a lack of funding. Even although he had a competitive IMOCA in the yard in the shape of the boat which took Nandor Fa to eighth place in the 2016-17 race, the 50 year old company director could not make the start line of the ninth edition.
But even as he watched the trials and tribulations of many of his former Mini Class contemporaries, Yannick Bestaven, Sam Davies, Arnaud Boissières and Ari Huusela to name but four alumni of the 2001 Mini Transat which Van Weybergh raced 20 years, he made good use of his time, raising his profile and that of the Vendée Globe with a weekly TV update every Sunday.