Issue date
Eight years ago, Conrad Colman was in grave danger.
The Kiwi sailor was participating in the prestigious Vendée Globe, the non-stop solo round-the-world yacht race which is one of the world’s most extreme sporting challenges. An event that takes years of preparation, it requires intense mental fortitude, and a complete sailor versed in every facet of the sport to even make the start line, let alone finish the gruelling race.
And didn’t Colman know it. Here he was, bobbing along in the Atlantic Ocean in a boat whose mast had been destroyed, still several days away from land, and with a grand total of two biscuits to survive on.
Colman, who was endeavouring to become the first sailor to complete the famous race without using fossil fuels, had set off with high hopes, but faced some tough times on his 27,000-nautical mile journey, having to frantically put out an electrical fire and seeing the brutal conditions battering his sails, leading to one particularly taxing 12-hour period where he had to climb his mast three times.
But if that wasn’t hard enough, just as he was heading for shore and the prize of the finish line, disaster struck. With 740 miles to go, Colman’s mast snapped, forcing him to construct a remarkable jury rig in order to continue. With his speed having plummeted as a result, what should have been a three-day jaunt to the finish line turned into a two-week slog, with the committed Kiwi having to resort to rationing survival food from his life raft.
But, fuelled by a biscuit per day diet that powered his last few days of sailing, Colman made it to the finish line after 110 days, making history after an overwhelming journey that saw him dice with death on several occasions; a journey that tested every conceivable sailing skill, and, most importantly, his inner strength and resolve.
Now, eight years on, it’s time to do it all again.
Conrad Colman is one of 40 skippers confirmed for this year's race. Photos / Georgia Schofield, Vendée Globe, Supplied
The Vendée Globe is raced every four years, with the 2024 edition – the 10th – starting and finishing in Les Sables-d’Olonne, France.
Forty skippers are set to take to the start line on November 10, with Colman’s return coming after he missed the 2020 race – an understandable decision, one might suggest, given the harrowing experiences of the 2016 edition.
Well, not quite.
“Even before I finished the last race, I was already dreaming about doing the next one,” says Colman, who, if you haven’t gathered by now, is not your traditional sailor.
His reasons for skipping an edition were not because of broken masts, fires, or massive waves, but perhaps an even more scary proposition – finances.
“I couldn’t quite get the full budget together. When Covid came I was super close to signing a budget that was necessary, but with the uncertainty relating to Covid it all went up in smoke, so that was a shame.”
Indeed, the near-death experiences and intense difficulty of the nearly four-month journey was far from a deterrent, instead, in some ways, it’s the reason Colman wants to compete.
“I felt I had a lot of unfinished business with the race. The dismasting and running out of food were the easy part, there was also the fire and the big knockdown and lots of damage in the Southern Ocean that took me days to get back up on my feet. So I really felt like I hadn’t been able to fully express myself as a competitor in that race, as I was just trying to keep the boat in one piece and myself alive.
“In many ways that’s part of the adventure – that’s what allows this race to be so much more than just a yacht race.”
And for Colman, his journey is much more difficult than the average sailor in the fleet, planning to once again complete the race with just solar and hydropower, a decision made as a result of his personal values.
“It’s pretty easy to flip a switch and start an engine and get all the power that you need,” Colman says, which is why he has no intention of using the diesel engine, which he had ripped out of his boat in 2016 but is forced by organisers to have on board in 2024.
“The class has changed the rule a little bit and won’t allow me to do the same mix of technology that I used in the last one. They’ve said the diesel engine is a safety device, and everyone has to have one, so I’m going to put a seal on the engine so hopefully it shows that it doesn’t turn and I never used it during the race to charge the batteries.”
Colman will take on the gruelling event with one of the smallest budgets of any competitor. Photos / Georgia Schofield, Vendée Globe, Supplied
Colman’s boat has a similarly bumpy history with the Vendée, with the IMOCA 60 class yacht having taken part in the race four times, but only reaching the finish once.
It also has a history with New Zealand – in the 2016 Vendée, the boat almost broke in half in the South Tasman Sea, with skipper Thomas Ruyant bringing it into Bluff to abandon the race. The boat was rebuilt in New Zealand and re-entered the Vendée fleet in 2020, racing to 10th place under the helm of Maxime Sorel.
It came into Colman’s possession three years ago, and since then he has done “a stupid amount of work” on the boat, including adding reinforcing layers of carbon fibre, laminating new structural beams, cutting off the roof to make better protection for the cockpit, and rewiring the boat with new electrical systems.
It will be called the MS Amlin, with the insurance company stepping up to provide title sponsorship and help Colman reach the start line.
“It’s absolutely thanks to them that I’m able to do what I do, they’ve really stepped up this year because they were a minor partner, then when they saw I wasn’t finding a title sponsor they combined two years of budget into one to get me to the start line.
“I’m able to do this on a low budget because I’ve got such a great series of technical partners,” Colman says, which also includes Italian company One Sails, who provided recyclable sails for his journey.
“When I wanted the project to be a better reflection of my own values, I went out hunting for suppliers and subcontractors that could help me fulfil that vision and they’ve been really great.”
Colman is especially appreciative of his sponsors given the financial constraints he works under.
“It’s part of Kiwi sailing lore that we have to do things on a shoestring and I’m definitely following in some well-trodden steps. There was an article in a French sailing magazine that ranked the budgets of all the teams and I was right at the very bottom.”
According to Colman, some of the top teams in the race will have a running budget of €2-3 million per year, with boats that can cost up to €7m.
“At the other end of it, I’ve got a big old bank loan that I’m servicing, and I’m operating at €400,000 per year. Which is still a big chunk of change, but it goes very quickly.
“I’m up against teams who have got 25 to 30 people in them, I have one full-time employee and a bunch of independent contractors who come in and do missions, so I am definitely wearing the hat of skipper, team manager, technical director, and as it happens, the accountant.”
It makes for a daily schedule that consists of so much more than just sailing a boat, with Colman managing to cram a wide array of tasks into a jam-packed day which still has plenty of time for wife Clara, 6-year-old daughter Ella and 4-year-old son Leo.
“I do the full-time job of whatever is required that day running the boat, and then I come home, turn off my phone and spend time with them for a couple of hours, then once everyone falls asleep I get up and look for sponsors and make presentations and pay the bills and do office work until stupid hours, until my son wakes me up at 6.30 in the morning, then it all happens again.”
While Colman is now based in France, his Kiwi ingenuity, drive and spirit come from the memory of a famous Kiwi round-the-world sailor.
“I throw myself into it both on the boat and on land in the years preceding with absolutely everything that I have, and that’s because I grew up listening to snippets of Peter Blake’s voice on the nightly news on Channel One, and that planted something deep inside me. When he was describing what was going on when they were doing the Whitbread and going around Cape Horn, that absolutely lit a fire inside of me and it’s a privilege to follow in those footsteps.
He made history in the 2016 event. Photos / Georgia Schofield, Vendée Globe, Supplied
“It’s an epic adventure even for those just chasing the victory, but for everyone along the way it is absolutely a yacht race. It’s almost 30,000 nautical miles and I will be fighting for every single inch of those.”
All of those inches will be taken on without fossil fuels by a man on a mission, who carries a personal motto to live by as a sailor.
“I feel very strongly that as sailors, we have not only the opportunity, but I would argue the obligation to become the greenest mechanical sport that’s out there.
“We’re pushed by the wind, so we should be charged by the sun.”
But when it comes to Conrad Colman and the Vendée, there needs to be one slight alteration.
The wind, the sun, and a whole lot of heart.
Click here, here or here to follow Conrad Colman’s journey.
Colman's boat has previous Vendée Globe experience. Photos / Georgia Schofield, Vendée Globe, Supplied
The Skippers
1. Antoine Cornic (Fra)
2. Sébastien Marsset (Fra)
3. Louis Duc (Fra)
4. Manuel Cousin (Fra)
5. Violette Dorange (Fra)
6. Guirec Soudée (Fra)
7. Jingkun Xu (Chn)
8. Fabrice Amedeo (Fra)
9. Isabelle Joschke (Ger)
10. Conrad Colman (NZ)
11. Szabolcs Weroës (Hun)
12. Tanguy Le Turquais (Fra)
13. Oliver Heer (Sui)
14. Arnaud Boissières (Fra)
15. Benjamin Ferré (Fra)
16. Denis Van Weynbergh (Bel)
17. Damien Seguin (Fra)
18. Pip Hare (GBR)
19. Romain Attanasio (Fra)
20. Benjamin Dutreux (Fra)
21. Giancarlo Pedote (Ita)
22. Justine Mettraux (Sui)
23. Alan Roura (Sui)
24. Clarisse Crémer (Fra)
25. Sam Goodchild (GBR)
26. Kojiro Shiraishi (Jpn)
27. Louis Burton (Fra)
28. Sébastien Simon (Fra)
29. Nicolas Lunven (Fra)
30. Maxime Sorel (Fra)
31. Jérémie Beyou (Fra)
32. Boris Herrmann (Ger)
33. Samantha Davies (GBR)
34. Yannick Bestaven (Fra)
35. Paul Meilhat (Fra)
36. Thomas Ruyant (Fra)
37. Yoann Richomme (Fra)
38. Éric Bellion (Fra)
39. Charlie Dalin (Fra)
40. Jean Le Cam (Fra)
