How Leicester City’s Premier League title win is helping sailor Alex Thomson in his bid to win the Vendee Globe

The Gosport-based sailor, aboard his £5.5m Hugo Boss yacht, is currently leading the Vendee Globe, a solo round the world race covering over 24,000 nautical miles.

It is a race Thomson has described as ‘the world’s single most difficult sporting challenge’.

Prior to starting his fifth Vendee race off the French port of Les Sables D’Olonnes on November 8, Thomson spoke about how the Foxes’ remarkable 2015/16 Premier League title success had aided his mental preparation for the world’s toughest yacht race.

The 46-year-old has regularly worked with psychologist Ken Way to focus and train his mind.

Way was part of Claudio Ranieri’s backroom staff when the Foxes defied 5000/1 odds to be crowned champions in 2016, and Thomson has taken plenty of inspiration from stories of one of sport’s most unexpected triumphs.

‘We’ve talked about that quite a lot, learnt lots of interesting stuff out of it,’ Thomson remarked.

‘It reinforces the ability that Ken has when people buy into the thinking and the possibility of making gains through your mental attitude and mental techniques to improve your sport.

‘I think in this particular case with what we do, there are so many tools, so many possibilities to make improvements, so it’s a really fascinating subject.

‘For me, the Vendee is as much a mental game as a physical, maybe even more so. Training your mind – and I can’t understand why you wouldn’t do it – it’s an absolute no-brainer.

‘But each to their own. I very much enjoy working with Ken and find what we work out not only helps me with the race but helps me be a better human being, so it’s all good.’

The current Vendee Globe is the first major race for Hugo Boss since the custom-built boat was officially launched on the Thames in September 2019.

Construction of his 60-foot carbon fibre boat – named after the team’s principal partner – had begun in June the previous year and required 50,000 man hours.

The 7.6 tonne black vessel, with striking splashes of fluorescent pink, was built by Hampshire company Carrington Boats - based in Hythe in the New Forest - and unveiled in the shadow of Tower Bridge.

Thomson had entered the 4.350-mile Transat Jacques Vabre race soon after the launch, but had to withdraw after hitting an unidentified object.

Thomson, along with co-skipper Neal McDonald, had only completed just over a third of the course from France to Brazil.

‘We’re not sure what we hit but it was something big under the water, which must have been submerged to have hit our keel and physically stop the boat at 25 knots,’ Thomson said at the time.

‘We were very lucky. If you were to get into your car, close your eyes, and drive at 40 miles an hour into a brick wall…that’s what it felt like!’

When Thomson started his latest bid to become the first non-French winner of the Vendee, his boat had changed from when it started the Transat.

‘These are prototype boats, there are always little niggles and stuff to improve and stuff that doesn’t quite work from the very beginning,’ he said in 2019.

‘If you think about Formula One, the cars are launched and by the end of the season they are completely different because they are being developed and changed all the time to try and make then go faster.

‘That’s exactly the same for us.

‘We expect in a year’s time we will be 10 or 15 per cent faster than we are now.’

Thomson and 32 other sailors started the 2020/21 Vendee Globe race, the ninth staging of the event that was first held in 1989.

Down the years, around 40 per cent of the entrants have never finished and two - Brit Nigel Burgess and Canadian Gerry Roufs - were lost at sea in 1992/93 and 1996/97 respectively.

‘I would describe the Vendee as the world’s single most difficult sporting challenge. To my mind, there’s no doubt,’ Thomson has stated.

‘A true test of not only a person’s physical strength, but more importantly their mental strength.

‘So few people have ever done this, less than a hundred. Comparing it to Everest – you can’t even compare it any more – 4,000-5,000 people have done Everest now.

‘You generally end up with 10 boats that can win, 10 that could podium and 10 that are adventurers.

‘And I’ve got so much respect for the adventurers because I couldn’t do it without the competition or the ability to go and win and compete.’

A broken foil ultimately denied Thomson victory in the last Vendee, in 2016/17.

Armel Le Cleac’h became the eighth successive French winner in a record time of 74 days, three hours and 35 minutes, with Thomson finishing second around 16 hours later.

He had previously finished third in 2012/13, having failed to finish on his first two Vendee attempts.

Those near misses meant Thomson was keen to take more risks with the design of his latest IMOCA 60 yacht in pursuit of a maiden triumph.

‘You’ve got to produce a boat that’s fast enough to win the race but reliable enough to finish,’ he said.

‘That’s probably the biggest challenge we are going to have, getting that equation right.

‘Having been third and second, you can now only be measured on being first and then I didn’t feel like I had to compromise in any way.

‘We often talk about, ‘let’s not try and hit the ball out of the park’, because you might get it wrong.

‘Whereas this time I felt like we could, legitimately, and I think we have.’

Explaining what motivated him, Thomson said: ‘If you remember Ellen (MacArthur), that’s a big reason why I’m here. She inspired lots of us to go out there and do it.

‘Ellen made it accessible – showed you could go and do it.’

MacArthur was the first woman to take part in the Vendee, in 2000/01, and famously finished runner-up. No female has ever equalled that achievement.

Thomson added: ‘I obviously want to win for me and the sponsors but it’s a bit like Bradley (Wiggins) winning the Tour (de France) isn’t it?

‘How many people then went and donned the Mamil (middle aged men in lycra) outfit and went out cycling?”

He added: ‘The interest is there, the story is strong enough.

‘It’s a human endeavour, human adventure story.

‘More and more sport is becoming more and more corporate and I think the people want adventure – and some live their own adventures through what we do.”

As of this morning, Thomson was around 130 nautical miles in front of Thomas Ruyant, with 21,300 miles left to race.

Portsmouth-based Samantha Davies was the highest-placed of a record six-strong female entry, in ninth place - 431 nautical miles behind Thomson.

Davies, who was fourth in the Vendee in 2008/09, is well ahead of the second highest-placed woman, Isabelle Joskche - the German was lying in 16th place, around 1,000 nautical miles behind Thomson.

Nicolas Troussel is the first of the Vendee fleet to retire.