A new boat for Fabrice Amedeo

A new start for our incredibly resilient skipper. Less than eight months after surviving the sinking of his IMOCA on the Route du Rhum, the launch of his new boat marks a new start for our skipper with an ambitious project: to preserve the oceans and take part in the energy transition.

Exceptional resilience

On December 5th, in the middle of the Route du Rhum, Fabrice Amedeo's racing yacht suffered damage before tragically sinking off the Portuguese coast. The skipper miraculously escaped unharmed but had to watch his boat and his dreams go up in flames, floating in a lifeboat on the Atlantic Ocean.

Fabrice Amedeo, along with his team and partners, made the courageous decision to keep pursuing his project and get back into the race as soon as possible.

A new boat for a new start

Less than eight months later, a new IMOCA has just left the Lorient hangar for her first launch in preparation for the Transat Jacque Vabre next November and the Vendée Globe in 2024.

The new boat has been completely refurbished during a six-month refit, which made her more sober, simple and reliable, in line with the demands of the Vendée Globe course and today’s general call for less wastefulness.

This yacht is more consistent than ever with our project and its values," says Fabrice Amedeo. “Simple, light and reliable, it's in tune with our humility in the face of the elements and global warming, which is making offshore air masses increasingly unstable and solo sailing in the southern seas ever more difficult”.

A boat at the service of the energy transition

Beyond choosing to modernize an existing boat rather than use new resources, this new boat will also be an ambassador for the energy transition in terms of its equipment and ambition.

Equipped with 15m2 of solar panels, she will aim to complete the next Vendée Globe without using fossil fuels.

The fight against global warming is at the heart of our strategy, with the development of solar energy storage and distribution products and services via Hager Energy GmbH and E3/DC. Our experts worked in close collaboration with Fabrice's teams to calculate the energy storage requirements, to size the batteries and to ensure the completion of this fossil-free round-the-world trip.

"By circumnavigating the world without diesel fuel, we'll be sending out a strong message about low-carbon energy and the energy transition," explains Fabrice Amedeo.

A laboratory boat dedicated to preserving the oceans

Continuing the scientific project Fabrice ran on his previous boat, the new IMOCA will be more than ever a laboratory boat, with all the same oceanographic sensors testing the health of the ocean as she sails.

A CO2, salinity and temperature sensor will help us understand the consequences of global warming on the oceans. A microplastics sensor monitors plastic pollution. Finally, an environmental DNA sensor provides information on marine biodiversity. These measurement campaigns are developed in collaboration with various scientific and oceanographic institutes: Ifremer, the University of Bordeaux, IRD, Geomar and the Max Planck Institute.

Shared values

Daniel Hager, a member of the Ocean Calling Fund Patrons Committee, believes in Amedeo's mission and sees its values reflected in his own: “The skipper's perseverance in travelling in the most sustainable way possible, his use of solar energy and his dedication to scientific research on the oceans resonate with what we stand for: a carbon-free future made possible by an ever more rapid energy transition away from fossil fuels”.