Vendée Globe 2020 live stream: Drama on the high seas

The Vendée Globe 2020 live stream was depicted around the world being the Mount Everest of sailing competitions. It also makes for amazing sports drama in a world starved for epic sports events

The Vendée Globe  is one of the world’s greatest endurance events. Launched every four years from Les Sables-d’Olonne in the French Département of Vendée, it’s a solo, non-stop, around the world race that attracts sailing legends and major brands.

The competition began on 8 November 2020 and continues into 2021. The winner of the last Vendée Globe, which started in 2016, circled the Earth in a record-breaking 74 days, but the voyage can last three months. Also, many boats don’t even complete the race. Of the 29 skippers who began the 2016 race, only 18 finished – and that was a record. Previously, the majority of the field has had to retire. This edition’s fleet consists of 33 skippers representing nine nationalities. Six of the competitors are women, more than in any previous Vendée Globe.

Solo, around the world sailing is a notoriously dangerous feat. The Vendée Globe has seen two deaths in its history. In 1992, British skipper Nigel Burgess was lost at sea three days into the race and, during the 1996 Vendée Globe, the Argos beacon on Canadian Gerry Roufs’ boat stopped transmitting in the South Pacific. The boat washed up on the coast of Chile months later.

Structural damage to the high performance monohull boats is common. The sea and the long days are hell on rudders, keels, masts and hulls. Then there are the collisions with UFOs (unidentified floating objects). Sometimes, these are whales, as in one case last time out (identified later with camera footage), but UFOs can often be manmade items, like floating cargo containers.

Nine nationalities: France, Germany, Japan, Finland, Spain, Italy, Australia, Great Britain

At the time of writing, high-profile competitors, Alex Thomson and Kevin Escoffier, have had to drop out due to damage. Escoffier ’s boat snapped in half in rough seas, sinking in minutes. Nearby competitors diverted from their course to rescue him. He was picked up by veteran skipper Jean Le Cam within 12 hours.

2021

This year, many boats are trialling a new collision avoidance system technology, OSCAR. The system uses mast-mounted daylight and thermal cameras, combined with AI, to alert skippers of potential obstacles along their heading. Skippers can view and record the images captured by the mast cameras and survey potential threats on a map.

Vendée Globe 2020 live stream

Hervé Borde has been a fixture of the Vendée Globe’s media coverage for 30 years. His company Nefertiti Production is the official host broadcaster for the 2020-21 event.

“I know this race,” Borde says. He was executive producer in 2004, 2012, 2016 and, before that, he helped individual skippers with their coverage, starting with the second Vendée Globe in 1992.

The Vendée Globe’s departure is a major celebration. Usually, Les Sables-d’Olonne is overrun with fans and the Vendée Globe village is a hub of excitement. This time, Covid-19 has forced the village to close a week before the race. Only authorised individuals were able to wave off the skippers in person. Other fans sent personal messages to the fleet that appeared on giant screens. Nevertheless, it was still a visual spectacular and included a dramatic flight over the boats by the Patrouille de France aerobatic team, streaming the Tricolour through the sky.

Our new video server has completely changed the way people are covering the Vendée Globe

Shooting the race

Shooting the complicated race start was split into two live segments: one with the boats leaving the pontoons and one with the boats heading out to sea. Using ten cameras and one helicopter with a Cineflex, Borde’s team captured the event in 4K UHD and produced a worldwide feed in HD. Directed by Anthony Forestier, director of the Tourde France coverage, the start went out to French TV channels and 28 international TV channels and digital platforms to a total of 190 territories.

Borde says the production of the start hasn’t changed too much over the years the Vendée Globe has taken place. The technology, number of cameras and number of affiliates have all grown, but the shoot has more or less remained the same. But the possibilities in terms of covering the race itself, from the individual boats, has changed greatly over the years.