I have watched yacht races from a clifftop, from a crowded pontoon, and once from a borrowed RIB that ran out of fuel at the worst possible moment. None of that prepared me for the Vendee Globe start. Forty boats heading off alone around the planet, no stops and no outside help, with a quarter of a million people lining the channel to see them go. If you keep your own boat in France, you can be out there on the water for it, and the experience is on a different scale to anything you watch from land.
This is a once-every-four-years event. The fleet left Les Sables-d'Olonne on Sunday 10 November 2024 at 13h02, and the next edition starts on Thursday 12 November 2028 at the same 13h02. Forty skippers is the cap, and that number has held for the recent editions. So you have time to plan, and you will need it, because berthing in the town that fortnight is the hardest part of the whole exercise.
Why the start is worth a passage
Most offshore races send the fleet over a line a few miles out and then they vanish. The Vendee Globe gives you a long, narrow theatre first. The boats motor out of the marina, then sail down the famous channel between the two stone jetties with crowds packed three deep on both sides. The skippers come within a few metres of people who have queued since dawn. Only after that procession does the actual racing line, set in the bay, come into play.
For a cruiser this means two distinct shows. The channel departure is intimate and emotional. The line start in the bay is the pure sailing spectacle, IMOCA 60s with foils up, hardening sheets and accelerating away. If you position well you can see both.
Getting your boat there
Les Sables-d'Olonne sits roughly 50 nautical miles south of the entrance to the Loire and a similar distance north of the approaches to the Ile de Re. From the Channel ports it is a serious passage, so most visiting boats stage down the coast over a season or arrive from a base further north. If you are coming from Brittany, the run past the Vendee coast is straightforward in settled weather but exposed in any westerly swell.
The town marina, Port Olona, is the home of the race and is effectively full for weeks around the start. If you cannot get a berth there, look at the wider region and treat the start as a day trip by sea. I go into the practical side of the port in my guide to the les sables dolonne marina, which is worth reading before you commit to a date, because the capitainerie books out and the prices climb in race season.
A note on the channel itself. During the days before the start it becomes a one-way river of spectator craft, and on start morning the authorities close it to private boats entirely so the race fleet can exit. You will not be sailing down that channel yourself on the day. Your viewing happens out in the bay.
The safety zones, and why they are not optional
This is the part people get wrong. Before each start the maritime authorities publish an arrete defining an exclusion zone around the race area and the channel exit. Inside it, only accredited boats are allowed. Spectator craft are held outside a marked perimeter, patrolled by the SNSM, the Gendarmerie Maritime and the affaires maritimes.
Get the official notice before you go. It will give you:
- The coordinates of the spectator boundary and the no-go zone
- The VHF channel for the safety co-ordination (monitor it the whole time)
- The window when the channel is closed to private traffic
- The speed limits inside the spectator area
Treat the patrol boats as gospel. They will move you, and on a day with this many craft afloat they have zero patience for a cruiser who drifts over the line for a better photo. Keep your engine ready, your crew briefed, and a proper lookout posted, because the bay fills with everything from jet skis to 30 metre motor yachts and the wash builds fast.
Where to sit for the best view
The line start is set in the bay off Les Sables, so the spectator fleet gathers to the south and seaward of it. Get there early. By mid-morning the good water is taken and you will be fighting wash from latecomers. I anchor where depth allows if the holding and the forecast are kind, then watch the start under engine, ready to reposition.
If the wind is in the west or southwest, which is common in November, the IMOCAs will be reaching out of the bay and you can let them sail across your view rather than away from it. Watch the committee boat signals and the countdown on the race tracker app so you know exactly when the gun goes. Once they are gone they are gone fast, twenty-plus knots of boat speed within minutes.
Weather is the whole game
Mid-November on the Bay of Biscay is not a forgiving season. The 2024 start ran in workable conditions, but it can blow hard, and a postponement is always on the table if the forecast is brutal for the fleet. As a spectator you face two risks: an uncomfortable, possibly dangerous sea state in the bay, and a long exposed passage home afterwards in fading light, because the start is at 13h02 and the November afternoon is short.
Plan your return leg before you leave the berth. Know your bolthole if the wind builds. If you are coming up or down the coast for the day, the tides and the swell on this stretch deserve respect, and I cover the broader picture in my notes on atlantic tides crash course. Carry more fuel than you think you need, because you will burn it holding station and jockeying for position far longer than you expect.
Make a weekend of it ashore too
Even die-hard sailors should spend time in the race village. In the run-up the pontoons hold all forty IMOCAs side by side, and you can walk the line and study the boats up close, the canting keels, the cockpit cuddies, the sheer scale of the foils. It is the best free education in offshore design you will ever get. The town itself is geared for it, and the energy in the days before the gun is unlike any regatta I have been to.
If the Vendee Globe gives you the offshore bug, the natural next step is the shorter, sharper racing that feeds it. The solitaire du figaro is where many of these skippers learn their trade, and following that fleet around the coast is far easier to organise on a normal cruising budget than chasing a round-the-world start.
The short version
Be there a few days early for the village. Book a berth months ahead or plan a sea day from elsewhere. Download the official exclusion-zone notice, monitor the safety VHF channel, and never cross a patrol boat. Sit south and seaward of the line in the bay, get there before mid-morning, and watch your weather window home like a hawk. Do all that, and you get to float a few hundred metres from a fleet setting off alone around the world. There is nothing else like it on the French coast.
