Having your boat in pieces on the dockside just 14 days from the start of your first Vendée Globe is not ideal preparation, but everything is reported to be under control in the last minute rush to get Steve White’s Open 60 Spirit of Weymouth ready.

No one knows the boat better than Josh Hall, who commissioned and raced the boat, the former Gartmore. Hall, who was one of four British skippers who raced in the 2000 Vendée Globe and finished 9th, has been in Les Sables d’Olonne working hard to ensure White and his boat are ready to take on the skipper’s ten year dream of competing in the Vendée Globe.

Hall reveals that without the last minute sponsorship that arrived last week, White stood a very high chance of losing the boat and his family house: ” It actually looks a lot worse than it is as often these things do, but a lot of work needed doing to the boat, basic work, to get her on to the start line and so she is completely in pieces at the moment with the bottom sandblasted. It looks like there is a mountain to climb, and there is – but it is a small one. But all of the people and all of the equipment is in place.” Hall says.

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