place during various COVID restrictions, and with football, motorsport, rugby, and tennis all put on hold, the race, the only active sporting competition taking place, received a remarkable upturn in following and promotion. The Vendée Globe, by defi nition a socially distanced sporting competition, took centre stage for three whole months. Daily live shows featuring updates and interviews with the sailors in two languages stood out as the best TV and social media sports shows to watch. As a result, several solo sailors soon became household names worldwide, and some foreign skippers still can’t walk down the street in their hometowns without being mobbed by fans! Although always commercially successful
in France, since the 2020 event, more global recognition of the sailors’ incredible feats has delivered signifi cantly better returns on investment for sponsors and technical partners alike and generated much more interest in the next race, which starts on 10 November 2024. The advent of crewed sailing and the adoption of the IMOCA class by The Ocean Race has led to many new races appearing on the calendar, too. The varied programme represents incredible value for professional or semi-professional IMOCA teams wanting to participate in high-speed, fully-crewed, and shorthanded racing. This is a class of boat that can be used for many types of events. And there’s certainly plenty in store over the next three years... The schedule starts in June 2025, with an 1850-mile race around the British Isles starting and fi nishing in Boulogne-sur-Mer on the French Channel coast. IMOCA crews can look forward to a challenging week-long race. The Rolex Fastnet Race follows this in late July 2025. Traditionally sailed two-handed
The “ADVENS 1” navigation station with wrap around screens. The heart of an IMOCA 60.
Vendée Arctic Race around Iceland in June 2026, and then the French Singlehanded Classic Route du Rhum race from St Malo to Guadeloupe in October 2026. This then brings us nicely around to the next edition
of The Ocean Race, scheduled to start in January 2027 from Alicante in Spain. This itinerant fully-crewed race with stopovers in South Africa, South and North America, and several different parts of Europe brings the two parts of the fl eet together for one of the most competitive of around the world races in existence today and a magnifi cent goal for sailors to aim for and compete in. At the conclusion of The Ocean Race in early
July 2027, boats will be refi tted and put back into a shorthanded confi guration, ready for the fi nal 12-month build-up to the 2028 Vendée Globe. This busy calendar of events creates a lot of work for the sailors and the teams working behind the scenes to prepare the boats. From the skipper and crew to the boat captain, shore crew, design offi ce, communications, logistics, commercial and administrative staff, along with project managers, composite experts, electronics and systems specialists, riggers, and one or two interns - it takes a well-oiled team to keep a successful IMOCA project running competitively. On average, for every hour of sailing, 100 man hours of work are required to ensure the yacht remains at peak performance and is ready and in the
Data is a critical driver in IMOCA performance and safety. Load sensing on all sail tack points and fi bre optic sensing in the foils allows the skipper to stay within the limits.
by the IMOCA fl eet, two divisions – two-handed and fully crewed - will likely be required for the 51st edition of the race, which takes place just ahead of The Ocean Race Europe. Starting in Kiel, Germany, in late August, The Ocean Race Europe will visit fi ve Western European ports, fi nishing deep within the Mediterranean in late September 2025. Teams then have the choice to continue sailing fully-crewed races – Malta’s October Rolex Middle Sea Race, the Canary Islands’ December RORC Transatlantic Race, Antigua’s February Rolex Caribbean 600, and The Ocean Race’s inaugural West to East Transatlantic Race starting from New York in September 2026 – or alternating with the short- handed programme with Le Havre’s November 2025 two-handed classic Transat Jacques Vabre, Les Sables d’Olonne’s singlehanded
right place for the next event on the calendar. Not all of this happens afl oat, of course. In Lorient, teams operate from large IMOCA-sized hangars, with associated specialist workshops and offi ce spaces. Seven new boats are already in the planning and construction stage for the start of the next 4-year cycle.
ADVENS1 Advens 1 originally designed as the One Design IMOCA Super 60 for the 2020 Volvo Ocean Race, was the brainchild of Guillaume Verdier. This represented his fi rst foray as an IMOCA designer without the co-design VPLP/Verdier partnership label. Pure Design
engineered the structure, and Persico handled
the production engineering. These entities are prominent in the America’s Cup, contributing to Team New Zealand and Prada Luna Rossa. When the Volvo Ocean Race project collapsed, 70% of the design was complete, and the hull was partially built.
Thomas Ruyant, a celebrated young French sailor, stepped in motivated by unfi nished business from a previous Vendée Globe attempt when his boat suffered extensive structural failure in the Southern Ocean. Over the following years, he put together a group of investors and, with a small team, positioned himself to take on the unfi nished Volvo Ocean Race project, signing contracts early in 2018 with Persico and Verdier. The boat’s composite box was delivered to Lorient in the summer of 2019, and launched two months later, ready for the Transat Jacques Vabre. The boat proved extremely competitive, fi nishing third on the water in Salvador de Bahia. Over the winter the boat was further optimised for the 2020 Vendée Globe, including ergonomics of the cockpit and cabin, allowing Ruyant to sail the boat hard but also rest and recover during the three-month-long race. Key upgrades included a custom-
moulded, body-hugging, fully orientable seat facing aft with wrap-around computer screens, a trackball integrated into the armrest, and access to hot water from the jet boil without having to leave the seat, A new set of V2 foils from Persico, and swift access to the cockpit for sail trimming and manouevering. The boat performed well in the Vendée-Arctic
Race, leading round the top mark near Iceland, and fi nishing just a few hours after Charal (now known as TeamWork) and close to sister-ship Apivia (now known as l’Occitaine). And excelled during the fi rst two weeks of the 2020 Vendée Globe before port foil damage caused Ruyant to drop to fourth overall on the water. In 2021, the boat was refi tted for the fi rst edition of The Ocean Race Europe. The boat performed extremely well in the fully-crewed confi guration, allowing Thomas Ruyant and Morgan Lagravière to get to grips with the boat’s performance, and, with a new V3 version foil package, take the boat to a crushing victory in
the Transat Jacques Vabre that Autumn. 2022 was a solo year, with the classic Route du Rhum as the main objective for Thomas Ruyant. The success of the previous Vendée Globe saw record numbers of new IMOCA builds and with 38 boats on the start line,
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112