Alex Thomson knew as soon as he had stepped ashore at the end of the Vendée Globe that he was going to dedicate the next four years to another attempt to win the epic single-handed round-the-world race. Having come so close to winning, how could he not?
The road to the next Vendée starts on the Isle of Wight tomorrow, when Thomson starts the Rolex Fastnet Race in a restored HUGO BOSS. It is more than six months since he arrived back in Les Sables d’Olonne in a gallant second place, plenty of time to get back the urge to race again.
But for a broken foil, Thomson surely would have won the most recent Vendée Globe. He was leading the race in the South Atlantic when HUGO BOSS is believed to have struck some submerged debris, causing the starboard foil to snap off and severely hampering Thomson’s speed for the majority of the race. But despite that, he still came frustratingly close to victory. “It’s no doubt a missed opportunity, but anyone who finishes the Vendée is a winner,” the 43-year-old said. “We have to learn everything from the last race, go forward and win it. It was extremely frustrating, but that sort of experience makes you stronger.
“There is no lack of hunger. As soon as we finish it is back on the trail to do the next one. The three things you need to win the Vendée are time, money and people, so since the end of the Vendée I have been working to put all of those things together.”
Despite HUGO BOSS being the most advanced IMOCA 60 boat in the fleet, Thomson has ambitions to build a new, even better one. Designing such a craft is always a complex balancing act between durability and speed, but it always pays to be at the forefront where technology is concerned.
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“We’d like to build a new one, so we are looking at all the options and then considering what design changes there will be,” Thomson said. “If we want to build, we need to start building by the middle of next year.”
Compared to the Vendée, the Rolex Fastnet Race is a sprint, with just 603 nautical miles from the start at Cowes to the finish at Plymouth, via the Fastnet Rock off the southern tip of Ireland. Nearly 400 boats will be competing in the 47th edition of the biennial event, making it the world’s biggest offshore race.
This is Thomson’s tenth Fastnet Race and he will share sailing duties with Nicholas O’Leary, his co-skipper from Ireland. The complex handicap system means that they have no chance of victory in the overall race, but instead compete with the other nine IMOCA 60s in their class.
“I wouldn’t want to do this race single-handed as masses of traffic makes it very stressful,” Thomson said. “I know Nicholas well. If you are getting on, it makes it that more enjoyable.
“It’s not a great forecast for us. When you look at the Vendée Globe course, statistically it is about seven per cent upwind, so our boat is moded for downwind. It is due to be upwind all the way to Ireland. It will make it challenging.”
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One thing that unites the Vendée and and Fastnet in recent years is French dominance. In the last edition in 2015, won by Géry Trentesaux’s JPK 10.80 Courrier Du Leon, seven of the first ten boats were French. Two years earlier, when father-and-son team Pascal and Alexis Loisin won, 12 of the first 14 were French.
Trentesaux competes again this year but in the multihull class aboard Guyader Gastronomie. The Loisins are back aboard Night And Day, the boat they won on in 2013.
The race will also be the first time that the fleet for the 2017-18 edition of the Volvo Ocean Race will line up against each other in their new VO65 boats, marking the start of the build-up to the race proper on October 22.