Little Warmth to Skippers of the Extraordinary Vendée Globe Sailing Race

Stockdorf/München – November 25, 2020 – The 33 participants in this year’s “Vendée Globe” sailing race are currently facing the challenge of sailing non-stop and solo around the world in the fastest possible time. The Vendée Globe competition takes place every four years. It starts in Sables d'Olonne (France) and covers almost 45,000 kilometers, circumnavigating the globe via Cape Horn and the Cape of Good Hope and passing through different time zones and climates. The current record is 74 days and 3 hours. To master this challenge the skippers need high quality equipment. An air heater from global market leader Webasto has been fitted to seven of the participating 60-foot boats, to keep them warm.

This extremely challenging race pushes participants to their limits. They need to constantly trim their sails to cope with changing wind and weather conditions. They are permitted to obtain remote advice, but must carry out their own repairs and treat themselves if they are injured or fall sick.

A wide variety of climatic conditions prevail from start to finish: In the south, temperatures can fall below freezing point. The seas are cold and inhospitable with further complicating conditions, like icebergs, to look out for. To ensure their boats remain light and fast the skippers are extremely conscious of saving weight aboard. Therefore, some of them decided for the light and reliable Air Top 2000 STC air heater from Webasto. The air heater removes humidity from the cabin and provides warmth for the skipper.

As the boats are not insulated, the seawater-resistant heater provides a relatively high output of 2kW in relation to the cabin volume to be heated. It uses the same fuel as the boat's engine (diesel) and its consumption of both diesel and electricity is very low – an important factor for achieving good on-board resource management.

Further information on the Air Top 2000 STC and other products from Webasto are available on December 10, 2020 at the virtual trade fair METSTRADE Connect (https://www.metstrade.com) as well as at www.webasto-comfort.com.