Game play Virtual RegattaOffshore organizes approximately 15 races a year. Some of these are held in partnership with some of the world's most famous sailing races, including the
Vendée Globe,
Route du Rhum,
Volvo Ocean Race and the
Solitaire du Figaro. These virtual regattas have routes identical to that of the actual race and the same start times. For each race,
Virtual Regatta simulates the real meteorological conditions experienced by the skippers and allows its players to participate in real-time from their computers or mobile devices. Players have to take into account real-time meteorological conditions in order to choose the best sail settings and heading, as they race against one another around the course. After signing up for a race, players can also choose their preferred type of boat and personalize it. Some races offer prize money of up to thousands of euros, which is split among the winners. As of 2020 the offshore version of the game had: • 1.5M active players • 193 countries represented • 50 races per year • 13 classes of boats The first major event had approximately 50,000 players. However the game quickly grew. Following this success
2008-2009 Vendee Globe and
2009-2010 Volvo Ocean Race, the
French Sailing Federation granted Virtual Regatta the status of a nautical club, where one can obtain a sailing license, in 2011. In 2010, the site had 600,000 registered players. There was an average of 35,000 players participating in each race, though races like the Vendée Globe and Volvo Ocean race saw more players. 245,000 players competed in the
Route du Rhum 2010, which was won by "Bolki". In 2014 Virtual Regatta organized challenges with famous skippers
Loïc Peyron in 2009,
Samantha Davies in 2010 and
Roland Jourdain in 2011, with the 3 skippers participating in the virtual race alongside the other players.
Pinnacle Races - Vendee Globe The game's popularity spiked during the
2008-2009 Vendée Globe, which saw 340,000 virtual sailors participate. The winner, Hugues Fournier, took 85 days, 19 hours and 45 minutes to sail around the world, which was only 36 hours more than the real winner of the race,
Michel Desjoyeaux. The game inspired the 200-page novel
Sur la vague virtuelle du vendée, written by author Patrice Baluc-Rittener and published in 2008. The story is a autobiographical recount of the author's personal adventure on board his virtual boat, “MacAII” on Virtual Regatta during the 2008-09 Vendée Globe. “MacAII” finished the race in 88 days, 11 hours and 15 minutes. The
2012-2013 Vendée Globe saw 460,000 players, a fleet so big the Virtual Regatta servers experienced issues at the start of the race (though these were fixed soon after). The winner of this edition, "llyl" took 74 days, 16 hours and 59 minutes. The hype around the virtual race drew both local and international media attention. , two winner of the Vendée Globe 2000-2001 et 2008-2009. The Vendée Globe 2016 brought together some 451,000 skippers, during which Virtual Regatta introduced "certified players" for the first time. These "certified players" included world renowned skippers, such as
Loïck Peyron,
Ian Lipinski and
Yves le Blevec, and celebrities like
Sylvain Marconnet and
Estelle Denis, all of whom played the race from start to finish. Every night at 20:00 during a race, participants were able to tune into “Virtual Regatta News”, a 10-minute news show about the virtual regatta with weather information and routing advice. During one race, this video-blog had over 40 million views. The presenter was the pro sailor Sébastien Destremeau. The
2020-2021 Vendee Globe was by far the largest ever online sailing game with over 1,000,000 unique users and is believed to be the first
online game of any type breaking a million users in a single race. It was won by French sailor Jean-Claude Goudon, who user name was “tigrou26120,” with finished in a time of 68 days, 22 hours, 16 minutes and 4 seconds.
Pinnacle Races - The Ocean Race The Volvo Ocean Race In 2014, Virtual Regatta organized the virtual version of the
Volvo Ocean Race. == Virtual Regatta Inshore ==