The Golden Globe Race, the single-handed round-the-world race sailed on 1968-era terms — no satellites, no GPS, paper charts, self-steering gear and a radio schedule — starts this Sunday, 6 September, at 14:30 from Les Sables-d'Olonne on the French Atlantic coast, per the organisers' published programme. The parade of sail down the harbour channel begins at 14:00; the fleet, its entries capped by the event's format and this edition's provisional list running to around a dozen skippers, then sets off on a non-stop circumnavigation expected to take roughly 240 to 260 days. The pre-start village — open since 22 August at Vendée Globe Square and the Port Olona jetty — has the fleet alongside and the skippers meeting the public, and the final days are the event's accessible best: the boats, the sailors, and the goodbye.
The race reproduces the original 1968 Sunday Times Golden Globe, which remains sailing's starkest story; the modern edition's rules freeze the technology at that era's limit of trust — celestial navigation, windvanes, a sealed HF radio — which is why its finishers number small and its following is loyal.
Why watch the start
Because the start is the spectacle and the race is the absence: the fleet leaves and, apart from position reports by design infrequent and a finish eight months away, the ocean closes behind it. Les Sables' channel on departure day fills with spectator craft and the seawall with tens of thousands — a French send-off to a field whose national affection for single-handers is its own institution. For the travelling spectator, the practical notes are the ones that always apply: arrive early, book everything, and the seawall beats a boat for the view of the channel.
The season's other September dates
The circumnavigation's start shares the month with the industry's own send-offs: the Monaco Yacht Show opens at Port Hercule on 23 September for its 35th edition, running four days — the superyacht calendar's finale and the fleet's last gathering before the winter refit season. The two events bracket yachting's full range with unusual neatness: one fleet leaving for the world's loneliest eight months, the other gathering under the floodlights of the smallest. September, as ever, opens with the sea's reminder of what the boats are for.