The start of the second edition of the Arctic Vendée was given this Sunday.
A total of 25 skippers set off on a journey around Iceland to reach the Arctic Circle, a non-stop solo race reserved for Vendée Globe boats.
The 18 m sailboats (Imoca) set off off the coast of Les Sables d'Olonne (Vendée), starting town of the Vendée Globe.
The course of the race covers 3,500 miles (about 6,500 km) to graze the Arctic Circle before returning to the Vendée port.
TOP START 🚦 Let 's go
for the #VendéeArctic 2022!
pic.twitter.com/m1eOKiLLaC
– Arctic Vendée (@VendeeArctic) June 12, 2022
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"The whole route is rough"
“I've never even set foot in Iceland,” laughed Jérémie Beyou, one of the skippers, the day before the start.
“We've never gone so high [in offshore racing], it's a great first.
Only Guirec Soudée sailed around Greenland, he told me that he had been locked in by the ice, I hope that won't happen to us!
»
This quadrennial race, qualifying for the Vendée Globe 2024, is held five months before the big meeting of the year, the Route du Rhum, a solo transatlantic race linking Saint-Malo (Ille-et-Vilaine) to Guadeloupe.
“You have to go there with caution, added Jérémie Beyou about Iceland.
It is an island with a lot of relief, very fresh air, very cold water, breeze.
»
"The tour of the island is a hundred miles, it's not on this portion that we're going to sleep," said the skipper, winner of the first edition in 2020 but whose course is n had not passed the southern tip of Iceland due to weather conditions.
“You shouldn't do anything stupid, he warns, the whole course is tough.
»
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