Denis Van Weynbergh on the IMOCA D’Ieteren Group completes The Transat CIC and secures his ticket for the Vendée Globe

The queen of transatlantic races has once again proven how demanding and tough she can be with no fewer than seven* retirements in the IMOCA category alone. With only a select few making it into its waters, Denis is among the lucky skippers whose monohull D’Ieteren Group gets to enter New York Bay this Friday evening (French time).

Indeed, the 3,200-mile course via the North face has been punctuated by fluctuating conditions, which have made life difficult for our Belgian skipper: ranging between storms (40-45 knots and cross seas) and light patches (windless zones).

The physical commitment was worthy of a passage through the Southern Ocean because with all these changes in mood out on the water, there has been an abundance of manoeuvring, especially on the approach to the marine mammal protection zone. For those caught up in unfavourable weather conditions almost down to the wire, the journey also tested the skippers’ nerves. “The storms have turned the weather systems into a Disney cartoon,” joked Denis, whose sense of humour remains very much intact even in the face of adversity.

This first transatlantic passage of the 2024 racing season is also a gamechanger in terms of the process for qualifying for the Vendée Globe. To secure his ticket for the Everest of the Seas, the IMOCA D’Ieteren Group had to finish within 1.5 times of the winning reference time (Yoann Richomme on Paprec Arkea), namely before the fateful hour of: this Friday at 22:50 hours UTC. As such, it is mission accomplished for the Belgian skipper, who will be on the start line on 10 November 2024!

Up next is a well-deserved break for both man and machine, as he recovers from his efforts alongside his fellow skippers over the coming weeks. The IMOCA D’Ieteren Group will be moored in One Fifteen marina opposite the impressive New York skyline, where her team of volunteers will carry out a thorough check of the key elements. Objective: to deliver a boat that is ready to tackle a second single-handed transatlantic passage: the New-York Vendée race, the start of which will take place later this month on 29 May.

"For D'Ieteren Group to make it across the line in The Transat CIC was no mean feat! This passage to the finish with a race time of less than 50% more than the winner validates my qualification for the Vendée Globe, which is not nothing. In fact, it’s very good! 6 years of effort, sacrifice and work. Thank you to everyone and a big thank you to my team because they’ve done an incredible job. They’ve been working on the boat for the past three years and they spend their holidays working on her. They are crazy! It’s thanks to them that I was able to set sail with a good boat and could sail a clean race and perform so well on the water. It is a genuine victory for us to be here and to cross this line now. This is one of the victories we were targeting with the project. It’s important this one. It validates the choices made 6 years ago and that is quite something.”