French skipper Manuel Cousin approaches the Vendée Arctique 2026 with the same quiet resolve that’s carried him through two Vendée Globe campaigns. For a New Zealand sailing audience familiar with Southern Ocean punishment, Cousin’s track record reads like a master class in offshore endurance. He finished the 2020 Globe, then returned to complete the 2024 edition—a double that speaks volumes about his resilience and boat-handling craft.
This time, Cousin sails Coup de Pouce, an IMOCA 60 built by Southern Ocean Marine in New Zealand back in 2007. The boat brings fresh foils to the Arctic challenge, which means the skipper faces a race within the race: learning his vessel’s behaviour in extreme conditions while pushing toward the Circle. For anyone who’s raced against the clock in the Southern Ocean, that combination of discovery and performance pressure will resonate deeply.
What distinguishes Cousin among the IMOCA fleet isn’t just his palmares. His sailing carries purpose beyond crossing finish lines. As patron of the Coup de Pouce association, which works to prevent school dropouts across France, he runs a solidarity project threaded through his racing. Every mile north becomes a mile that supports disadvantaged students. It’s a model more sailors should consider—competition with community at its core.
At 18.28 metres, Coup de Pouce sits at the lower end of IMOCA bulk, yet carries the pedigree of Farr Yacht Design and nearly two decades of ocean racing experience. The boat can move. Cousin, characterised by colleagues as genuinely warm alongside his fighting spirit, won’t ask the yacht for anything it can’t give. Instead, he’ll coax out consistency and performance through meticulous seamanship.
The Arctic’s brutal light cycles and ice fields will test different skills than the Southern Ocean’s relentless swells, but the principle remains unchanged: stay focused, stay patient, stay connected to why you’re out there. For Cousin, those reasons run deeper than the latitude line.
