The Vendée Globe is a sailing race around the world. There are 30 competitors, each of whom is sailing by him- or herself in a type of boat known as an Open 60, the fastest kind of sailboat in the world. There are no rest stops, no stopping along the way on dry land. No racer is allowed to accept help from another boat or sailor.

The race begins in Les Sables d’Olonne on November 9. Sailors will immediately head south to take advantage of summer weather in the Southern Hemisphere. They will cross through the Doldrums and then head east around the Cape of Good Hope. After rounding Africa, they will continue east through the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Once they pass Cape Horn at the tip of South America, they will head north through the Atlantic back to Les Sables d’Olonne.

Of the 30 racers, 17 are French. Seven, including the two women competing this year, are British. Two are Swiss and two come from North America—one from Canada and one from the United States. One sailor is from Austria, and the final one is from the Basque region of Spain. Skipper Dejeanty is the youngster of the group at 30. Skipper Wilson, the American, is the eldest at 58. Sixteen sailors are competing in the Vendée Globe for the first time; Skipper Thiercelin is racing for the fourth time. Only French racers, two of whom are entered again this year, have ever won the race.

This is the seventh time the race, which happens every four years, has been held. The first time the race was held, in 1989–1990, 13 sailors entered the race and only seven finished. The first winner finished 110 days after setting sail. 2000 marked the first year that sailors were able to complete the race in fewer than 100 days, as well as the first time that more than 10 boats crossed the finish line. In the following race in 2004, the top boat finished in under 90 days. How fast will the racers go this year? How many of the 30 boats will finish?

The Vendée Globe is not without danger. Winds are high and seas are rough, and when you’re alone on a boat, anything can happen. Many racers do not finish, forced off the oceans by failed equipment, bad health, or other troubles. But even those sailors remind themselves that they have escaped a worse fate. In 1992, a sailor drowned only four days after starting out. Four years later, one sailor drowned on his way to the race start and another was lost at sea during the race off the coast of Chile. While the sailors who compete in the Vendée Globe remember those who have perished, they also know that with careful planning and good luck, most racers survive the trip and more than half finish successfully.

Stay tuned through the fall and winter to see how to the seventh sailing of the race turns out!