Les Sables d’Olonne is a thriving fishing and commercial port, a city in the Vendée “department” of the Pays-de-la-Loire region of France. The Vendée Globe event is a unique public-private enterprise with fiercely held local roots. Everyone from the Vendée Chamber of Commerce down to local businesses is a proud collaborator in the success of the race. They realize it attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors and illuminates the bounty the area offers tourists and locals alike.
It’s as close to a family run mega event as you can imagine. The major private enterprise footing the bill is Sodeb’O, a small processed meat and catering company based in the area and a market leader in refrigerated products including pizzas, sandwiches, pancakes, and hot dishes.
For the citizens and businesses of Les Sables d’Olonne and the Vendée area of Pay de-la-Loire, this event is as big as the Olympics. They leave nothing to chance in their goal to make it a perfect event.
Of the 15,000 square meter ‘village’ of temporary pavilions the partnership erects in the marina every four years, 600 square meters are devoted to education. So when the skipper tells me to visit it, I head up there.
The education pavilion is a kid’s dream of a place. Around every corner, there’s an activity to get your hands on or a well-produced video to watch. Two prominent videos show “What is the Vendée Globe?” and “Twenty four hours in the life of a skipper.”
Want to see what it’s like to maneuver a boat on the open sea? Step up to the tiller or a wheel and watch a video in front of you point a boat through the water in the direction you’ve headed it. Want to know how to raise the main sail? Grab the halyard at the “mast” installation and haul a Dacron sail up a mini mast, then lower it.
It’s no wonder the girls nearly outnumber the boys in the line. Samantha Davies (Roxy) and Dee Caffari (Aviva), both of Great Britain, are two of the 30 high profile skippers who qualified for the race.
Cutaway models show the innards of an Open 60 featuring what life is like about an Open 60: how and what the skippers eat, how they relax or celebrate rounding Cape Horn or open gifts loved ones have packed for them for special occasions, how they try to keep hygiene with Spartan amount of water, what they use for the bathroom (a plastic bucket!), how and where they sleep and communicate to the outside world, how they manage sails and keels and ballast, how radios use satellite to relay beams, and how solar power works.
Organizers tout local industry. Les Sables d’Olonne still produces sea salt: a poster shows how the desalinization process works.
“Become a fisherman,” a hands on panorama scene wired to a series of occupations shows the types of fishing opportunities that exist right off the pavilion’s water’s edge.
Another display shows the geology of the coast: reach your hand into a hole recessed at its base and feel the different kinds of rock and sand of which the coast’s layers are composed.
Organizers are making their case for their youngsters to find vocational and environmental reasons to stay put in the region instead of migrating to urban areas.
The atmosphere in the pavilion is electric. The decibel level is high, the good kind of high that registers as engagement not cacophony. Many high school aged kids and grade schoolers are focused on particular exhibits in order to answer questions on forms their teachers oblige them to complete. No one complains about answering questions about the Beaufort Scale or survival gear the skippers must have aboard or the heights and weight of the Vendee Globe boats. They’re too busy doing what they love. Getting their hands on things and watching videos. When they finish, they’re prepped to finish the day by walking a few hundred yards down to the ‘pontoons’ to see the most exotic sailboats in the world.
Adults can try their hand at steering in a virtual environment. They’re fitted with goggles and do their best to keep an Open 60 sailing in a straight line. Spectators see how daunting a task this is as they watch the video screen showing an Open 60 plow through the water with a landlubber at the helm. And shake their heads in amazement that the skippers being interviewed in the 800 square meter multimedia area in the next pavilion manage to accomplish it.
Rich was right. This was as fine an off-site educational environment as I'd ever seen. And a place to have as much fun as the kids.
Photos except for last one Paul A. Tamburello, Jr.
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