Les Sables d’LOnne. The French port in the Vendee region will host the start and finish of the 2018 Golden Globe Race. Image: Alexandre Lamoureux/Les Sables d’LOnne/GGR

The 2018 Golden Globe Race, celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the original event back in 1968/9 which led to the first solo non-stop circumnavigation, will now start from Les Sables d’Olonne France on 1 July, 2018.

Les Sables d’Olonne, which also hosts the start and finish of the four-yearly Vendee Globe solo non-stop round the world race in Open 60 class yachts, is now a partner in the 2018 Golden Globe Race and will host a two-week celebration to the origins of solo sailing in the port prior to the start.

Yannick Moreau, President of the Sables d’Olonne Agglomeration, said: “The port of Les Sables d’Olonne, home of the Vendée Globe, is happy to welcome the Golden Globe Race, the father of all the solo round the world events, a pure race that places man and not the machine at the heart of this maritime adventure.

“The Sables d’Olonne agglomeration, the city and the Vendée partners will be happy to offer the Vendée Globe channel and public support to these adventurers who will take off from Les Sables on July 1, 2018, 50 years after Knox –Johnston, Bernard Moitessier and their companions.”

Prior to this, the entire GGR fleet of traditional long-keeled yachts and their skippers will participate in a special Suhaili Parade of Sail in Falmouth, Cornwall on 14 June to mark the day that Sir Robin Knox-Johnston set out to win the original Golden Globe Race 50 years before.

One of nine entrants, Sir Robin was the solo finisher. Frenchman Bernard Moitessier sailing Joshua, rounded Cape Horn 17 days behind Knox-Johnston, and having the bigger yacht, might have overtaken his English rival. But instead of heading back up the Atlantic in hot pursuit, Moitessier turned east to make a second circumnavigation of the Southern Ocean to ‘Save my soul’ as he put it.

Sir Robin, sailing aboard his famous yacht Suhaili, will lead Bernhard Moitessier’s yacht Joshua, Sir Francis Chichester’s Gipsy Moth IV and Sir Alec Rose’s Lively Lady in a Parade of Sail around Falmouth Harbour saluted by the Golden Globe Race skippers and many other vessels on the day.

Then Sir Robin will fire a cannon from the deck of Suhaili to start the GGR SITraN Challenge charity race to Les Sables d’Olonne with Joshua marking the leeward end of the line. Suhaili and Joshua will also compete with other famous yachts and their arrival in Les Sables d’Olonne with the GGR fleet will mark the opening of the 2018 Golden Globe Race Village two weeks before the start.

The Golden Globe Race had been planned to start from Plymouth, but a two-year search for sponsorship across the UK did not produce a successful outcome and prompted this change of host port.

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