They don’t do things by halves in Les Sables D’Olonne. First, 60 RIBs assembled in a ‘Z’ formation – not as a watery Zorro trademark but to publicise a sponsor, Zodiac. Each night, 50 kilometers of cable, 4 4.5kW skytracers, 6 video projectors each with a power of 20,000 to 30,000 lumens, 2x40W lasers and 60 spotlights combine to produce a spectacular light show.

150,000 people have visited the race village in its first week.

Meanwhile, no less than 25 people are working flat out to get Alex Thomson’s Hugo Boss back to sailing condition. With typical humour the Hugo Boss teams have set up Boat World, Rig World, Splice World and Preparation World, all working in their parallel universes towards the common goal of having the IMOCA Open 60 sailing November 1st.

Harry McGougan, Hugo Boss shore manager says:
” In Boat World the hull, deck and sections are now both glued in and the outside bonding has started happening, inside bonding on the hull sections. In Rig World the splicing kit arrived at 0100hrs this morning (Sunday) and has been glued into the sections and is being prepared for the outer shells. Splice World is in good shape with probably a day and a half or a bit more of splicing. Prep World is doing good. We have our scrutiny tomorrow morning, and so we are generally pretty on top of getting the prep ready for when we go sailing for the 30th, so that means that when we go sailing, aiming for the 1st it will throw up a whole new list of jobs.”

Vendée Globe website