About the 2008 Artemis Transat Archive

Purpose of the Archive

The 2008 edition of the Artemis Transat came and went the way most ocean races do. Boats finished, the press moved on, and the detailed material that surrounds a transatlantic crossing began to scatter across old race servers, expired press accounts, and the personal files of people who happened to be there.

This site exists to hold that material in one place.

We treat the race as a documentary subject, not a promotional one. The goal is to preserve what actually happened on the water between Plymouth and Boston in 2008: who entered, what they sailed, how the fleet split across the IMOCA 60 Fleet and the Class 40 Fleet, and how the standings settled by the time the last skipper reached the American coast. Where a fact can be confirmed, we state it plainly. Where it cannot, we say so.

Origins and Development

The archive began as a small reference document. One of us was reconstructing the finishing order for the Class 40 boats and kept running into broken links and conflicting elapsed times. A single spreadsheet grew into a folder. The folder grew into something that needed a structure.

From there the work followed the shape of the race itself. We started at the Plymouth Start, working through port logistics and the pre-race build-up, then traced each class westward toward the Boston Finish. Race documents, classifications, and contemporaneous reports were cross-checked against one another before anything went onto a page.

The site is deliberately narrow in focus. Rather than absorb every transatlantic event, it stays with the 2008 Artemis Transat and goes deep. That decision has kept the material manageable and the standard of verification consistent.

The Archival Team

The people behind this project share a background in offshore sailing and in the patient business of getting records straight. Some came from the technical side of race documentation; others from sailing journalism and the long habit of checking a claim before printing it.

None of us was the official record-keeper for the 2008 race, and we make no claim to be. The work here is independent and ongoing, carried out by a small group who think the edition deserved a more durable home than scattered web pages could offer. Decisions about what to include, and how confidently to state it, sit with this team rather than any race organiser.

Value for Researchers and Enthusiasts

Who actually needs this? A few groups, in our experience.

Maritime historians use the archive for primary-style reference on a specific edition. Naval architecture students come for the contrast between the Open 60 monohulls and the production Class 40s that shared the course. And there are the followers of solo offshore racing who simply remember 2008 and want to revisit it without wading through dead links.

For the casual reader, the reward is different. The archive lets you follow one skipper across the Atlantic and understand the choices that shaped a single crossing. That depth, rather than breadth, is what we set out to provide.

Scope and Limitations

Honesty about boundaries matters more than the appearance of completeness.

This archive covers the 2008 Artemis Transat and nothing beyond it. Earlier and later editions of the race fall outside our remit. Within 2008 itself, the record is as full as the available documentation allows, which means some gaps remain where original sources are silent or contradict one another.

We have favoured caution over guesswork. When two sources disagreed on an elapsed time or a retirement, we noted the disagreement rather than picking a winner for the sake of a tidy table. Some figures that once circulated in race coverage could not be independently confirmed, and those have been left out rather than reproduced.

If you hold material from the 2008 race that would strengthen the record, we would welcome it. The Contact page explains how to reach us, and our handling of any information you share is set out in the Privacy Policy.