Vendée Globe 2024. With Virtual Regatta, he lives the race from his boat in his garden

A Ligerian will participate in the Vendée Globe in an unusual way. In his boat installed on his land in Saint-Julien-Molin-Molette, he will experience the famous sailboat race in real time, but virtually. A motionless world tour.

At each edition of the Vendée Globe, a virtual race also takes place in parallel. The Virtual Regatta game brings together several million users, passionate about sailing, around the world. He allows players to participate in a virtual race that takes place in real time. The game notably simulates the weather conditions encountered by the skippers during this sailing race.

When the forty skippers set off from Sables-d’Olonne to the famous sailing race around the worldsolo and without stopover or assistance, the competitors in the virtual Vendée Globe will also take the start. Among them, Bernard Poiteau, a sea bass from the Loire region. He is getting ready to experience the adventure without leaving the soil of cows.

“I have neither the age nor the money to do the Vendée Globe. I said to myself: I’m going to do it in my meadow and my greatest desire is to be the first sailor from the meadows to go around of the world,” explains Bernard Poiteau, retired and former justice official. The boat was bought for one euro on the internet.

The latter has already put on his yellow raincoat and boots, ready to cast off to face the high seas and the squalls. In the Loire, Bernard will also take to the sea, but from his garden, for a stationary world tour. For almost two months, he will live like a skipper, in his boat installed on the heights of Saint-Julien-Molette.

Berths, food for two months, ecological waste management… nothing is missing to take part in this adventure: “I am completely independent. I will be in real conditions, 22 hours a day. My doctor has required that I walk for an hour and a half. There will be half an hour for washing which I will not do in the boat”explains the competitor. The 71-year-old retiree, however, fears the cold and humidity.

Bernard will compete in this race on his tablet. He will have to adjust his course every three hours, day and night, to keep up with the competitors and face the elements.

The Ligerien also plans to keep a logbook of his adventure. “One page will be devoted to how I feel on my boat, with the cold and the humidity. Another page will say where I am in the race. The goal for me is to fight against the 40 boats in the Vendée Globe. They all run like me for an association, because I sail for the Anticyclone du Père Riffard association in Montreynaud.

An association of which Bernard is a member. “Anticyclone, it chases away depression and brings back blue skies”, comments Bernard. Tireless support of undocumented immigrants, Father Riffard welcomed them for years in his Sainte-Claire church. He died last summer. Bernard hopes to make the association better known. “We hope to receive from donors one euro per day, for each day I stay on the boat”adds the virtual competitor.

Bernard intends to stop the race when the first official boat arrives. For the Loire competitor, this challenge is also a way of saluting the courage of the migrants who crossed the Mediterranean. “They tell me how they found themselves alone, in rafts… They made immense crossings.” For Bernard, investing personally in this race is a way “to honor” these asylum seekers.