The Imoca are 60-foot Open monohull yachts mainly intended to race in the Vendée Globe. Find here the latest news and investigations from Tip & Shaft on the subject.
Between the “Clarisse Crémer affair” and The Ocean Race, Imoca is top of the news agendas at the moment and so a good time for for Tip & Shaft to speak with the president of the class, Antoine Mermod.
Banque Populaire announced on Thursday noon that they have been “forced to change skipper” for the next Vendée Globe thereby confirming the information revealed a few minutes earlier by Clarisse Crémer. Their decision, motivated by the Cremer having fallen behind in the race for qualifying miles due to her maternity plus the “inflexibility” of the organization of the Vendée Globe despite the sponsor’s requests has provoked a big reaction. Tip & Shaft tells you more.
Britain’s Phil Sharp announced this week that he will have the third Sam Manuard designed IMOCA to be built by Black Pepper Yachts. One of the most successful Class40 skippers of recent years, is also a highly talented mechanical engineer. With his OceansLab he plans to highlight the hydrogen fuel cell technology system which he co-invented and is presently commercialising for the leisure and commercial marine sectors.
At the end of the first leg of The Ocean Race between Alicante and Cape Verde (see the tracker), Tip & Shaft spoke with Sébastien Simon (32), crew member of Guyot Environnement-Team Europe which he will now join for the second stage towards Cape Town.
The start of The Ocean Race which will be sailed in Imocas for the first time (*) is set to be on January 15 from Alicante for a first leg heading to Cape Verde. As well as the actual sporting challenge there is a big logistical challenge for the teams involved, particularly as four of them were on the Route du Rhum during November. Here Tip & Shaft assess the human, technical and financial resources required to deal with these challenges.
This year has been busy for Paul Meilhat. Between the build of his new Imoca Biotherm (sistership of LinkedOut) at Persico Marine then with minimal preparation for the Route du Rhum-Destination and the race itself in which he finished in sixth place, it has been a full on 2022. And it’s far from over as the French skipper flies to Alicante on Saturday to start getting ready for The Ocean Race which starts on January 15. Even so, he still found the time to answer questions from Tip & Shaft.
As before every major event, Tip & Shaft has invited a panel of experts to analyse the line-up for the Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe which starts on 6th November. In this first part dedicated to the Imoca and Ocean Fifty competitors, we talked to Antoine Mermod, the president of the Imoca class, Jeanne Grégoire, head of the Pôle Finistère Ocean Racing training centre, Daniel Souben, trainer in La Trinité-sur-mer for Orlabay, the sailors, Yann Eliès, Christopher Pratt and Vincent Riou, as well as Jacques Guyader, journalist with Ouest-France.
On Monday in his hometown of Port-la-Forêt, Jean Le Cam unveiled his 2024 Vendée Globe project. It will feature a brand new boat with daggerboards designed by David Raison and he will be backed by the Finistère department (region), Armor-lux and a group of partners for a budget totalling 4 million euros over 4 years. Tip & Shaft tells you how this project came about.
On Wednesday Canadian businessman Scott Shawyer announced the launch of Canada Ocean Racing an initiative intended to take him to the Vendée Globe 2028. It is a long term a project which will be a collaboration with Alex Thomson Racing across all the facets of the business. And it was an overdue opportunity for Tip & Shaft to catch up with Thomson who is obviously not finished with the Vendée Globe.
Maliza – Seaexplorer, Boris Hermann’s new Imoca which is designed for both The Ocean Race and the Vendée Globe, was launched in Lorient on Tuesday. Among the dozen strong team from the VPLP studio involved in the project, Quentin Lucet, leader of the agency’s racing department, explains to Tip & Shaft the key points and why particular choices were made.
Unveiled on Monday in a video made at dawn a few days earlier, the new Charal 2, a Manuard design built at CDK Technologies in Lorient, will actually be launched on Monday. And so a good opportunity for Tip & Shaft to talk to its skipper, Jérémie Beyou, who is presenting his new Imoca.
The Vendée-Arctic-Les Sables d’Olonne, which started last Sunday has proven particularly engaging, with very different weather choices and conditions and now the neutralization of the raceto the east of Iceland which was announced Friday morning. Charlie Dalin was the first to cross the virtual line ahead of Jérémie Beyou and Thomas Ruyant. Tip & Shaft looks back on these first five days, with three Imoca skippers, Clarisse Crémer, Kevin Escoffier and Yoann Richomme, as well as the president of the Imoca class, Antoine Mermod.
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