Singlehanded round the world one design

Several new shorthanded round the world races have been announced over recent months, but while there seems to be an increasing appetite for this form of racing, is demand great enough for them all to survive? One of the most promising is the SolOceans, a one stop race in one design 52 footers, organised by SailingOne, the company of highly capable Frenchman and one time L'Esprit d'Equipe crewman Yvan Griboval. The race is scheduled to start and finish in France with a stopover in Wellington, New Zealand and will be held for the first time in 2009, starting on 29 October. Griboval has managed to tick all the boxes. Initially he got Michel Desjoyeaux to be technical advisor for the new boat and to create the one design he commissioned Finot-Conq, who have penned the last four Vendee Globe winners. Female tooling was created by well known La Trinite-sur-Mer boat builder Charlie Capelle, while production boats are to be built by JMV Industries in Cherbourg who have built many of the most successful Open 60s of the last decade and a half including Christophe Auguin's Groupe Sceta and Geodis (his BOC Challenge and Vendee Globe winners) and Mike Golding's first Open 60 Team Group 4. Most significantly Griboval has secured sponsorship from the backers of Roland Jourdain's Open 60 Veolia, who have been given naming rights to the one design, now known as the Veolia Oceans. This is somewhat confusing -shouldn't Veolia Oceans be the name of the race? The race's Kiwi stopover was endorsed by New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark in Paris earlier this year. Recently the SolOceans entered a new phase with the launch of the first Veolia Oceans one design, which ventured across the Channel recently for a brief visit to Southampton, where thedailysail were fortunate enough