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Boris Herrmann leads fleet in the Vendée-Arctique-Les Sables d'Olonne

10 th July 2020 – Midway through the Vendée-Arctique-Les Sables d’Olonne, with 1,339.3 nautical miles to the finish, it is all-change at the top of the leaderboard. German sailor Boris Herrmann on  Seaexplorer – Yacht Club de Monaco  took the lead this morning at 09h30 CET of this unique solo race. The triangular course between Les Sables d’Olonne, the polar circle and the Azores islands is the last qualifying race for the Vendée Globe which starts 8 th November 2020.

Consistent and combative, staying in the top seven since the start on 4th July, Boris took the lead during the night, opting with Kévin Escoffier ( PRB ) and Sam Davies ( Initiatives Coeur ) for a route slightly to the west of a direct line.

As the 17-strong fleet of IMOCAs (still in the race out of 20) head south to the second Waypoint in the Atlantic on the same latitude as Les Sables d’Olonne, light winds could complicate progress. The battle continues between Thomas Ruyant, Jérémie Beyou, Kévin Escoffier, Charlie Dalin, Sam Davies and Boris Herrmann, with all six being only within a 10nm radius of each other.

The field is wide open!

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Boris HERRMANN

MALIZIA - SEAEXPLORER

In 2001 Boris was the youngest and only German to participate in the Mini Transat race, a singlehanded yacht race across the Atlantic where he finished in eleventh place. In 2006 Herrmann finished second in the European Championship as well as in the German Championship in the 505 class.

In 2008 Herrmann sailed his Class 40 yacht "Beluga Racer" into second place in the Artemis Transat, the oldest transatlantic race for yachts sailed singlehanded. Boris went on to win the Portimão Global Ocean Race, a five-leg round the world race on Class 40 boats. He and his co-skipper Felix Oehme won three of the five legs of the race.

In 2010, he raced in the Barcelona World Race with co-skipper Ryan Breymaier and finished in 5th place. During 2016 Boris crewed on the GC32 Malizia as part of Pierre Casiraghi's team for the GC32 Racing Tour.

The Malizia IMOCA project was founded in 2017 by Pierre Casiraghi and Boris Herrmann with the support of the Yacht Club de Monaco in order to realise a dream of sailing in the Vendee Globe and have Monaco's commitment to the sport realised through this ambition. In August 2017, with the support of The Yacht Club de Monaco, Malizia II was founded and Boris and Pierre sailed her in the Rolex Fastnet Race and bagged the third spot on the podium. In 2018 they competed in the Monaco Globe Series and then Boris went on to compete singlehanded in the Route du Rhum 2018 securing 5th place. In 2020 Kuehne + Nagel joined the team as a joint title partner and Malizia was renamed as Seaexplorer - Yacht Club de Monaco with major updates to the boat to create a competitive edge. 

On November 8, 2020, Boris Herrmann will start the Vendée Globe. Throughout the race, the skipper will have shown his seamanship and his ability to make his boat move quickly without damaging it. His story, so beautiful, however, took a somewhat dramatic turn when, a few hours from the finish, he collided with a fishing boat. He managed to reach Les Sables d'Olonne, with a damaged boat, and thus finished his race in 80 days! 

The Malizia Ocean Challenge In 2018, Boris and Pierre founded the Malizia Ocean Challenge project.This initiative aims to combine sailing, science and education to get children fascinated about sailing and ocean topics whilst teaching them about climate change and to love our seas with our kids’ ocean challenge kit. We have got over 10,000 children involved in this topic to date. At the same time, we carry an on-board sensor to measure the CO2 in the ocean in remote, hard to reach locations and this data is then sent to our scientific partners at Geomar and the Max Planck Institute.

Sailing Highlights

2007 : Mondial 505 - 9th 2006 : Mondial 505 - 7th 2006 : EuroCup 505 - 2nd 2005 : EuroCup 505 - Winner 2001 : Transgascogne (Mini 6.50) - 4th 2001 : Mini Fastnet - 10th 2001 : Mini Transat - 11th

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He was briefly on the podium during the festive season, and now he’s back. Boris Herrmann is in the throes of pulling off a flawless performance on Seaexplorer-Yacht Club de Monaco off the coast of Brazil by dislodging Thomas Ruyant (LinkedOut) and Damien Seguin (Apicil). Balmy airs have given the German skipper wings as he reveals his boat’s full potential after his patient careful strategy in the Southern Oceans to preserve it. Today he’s the quickest of the top six.

 Grist to the mill

“We entered the final sprint in race mode. I have the conditions I dreamed off. I’m heading north at 1o. I am trying to use 100% of the boat’s potential and my foils, unlike Thomas and Charlie whose foils are damaged. With 13 knots of wind, I am currently doing 15.6 knots and am super happy,” said a delighted Boris.  

“We are very close to the others. I am 39 nautical miles from Charlie (Dalin on Apivia) and just over 16 miles from Louis (Burton on Bureau Vallée 2). It’s really exciting, with so much to play for and just under 4,000 nautical miles to the finish. But there’s still a long way to go, including two decisive stages: getting through the Doldrums and sailing up the North Atlantic. It remains wide open and promises to be a very exciting end to the race!”

With thunderstorms being legion off Salvador de Bahia, competitors have to deal with zones of light wind and sudden squalls blasting into the mainsail, making it impossible to relax. With one eye on the chart, another on the horizon, all their attention will be focused on managing sudden changes in wind strength and direction.

Hanging in there

The weather is adding spice to the final sprint. The next big challenge for the top three is the Doldrums, extending 200 to 250 miles wide with the trade winds in the Northern Hemisphere seeming to converge with those from the south hinting at a steady easterly flow. The North Atlantic is close and the slightest tactical error could determine the rest of the race to Les Sables-d’Olonne.

Placings remain fluid, as evidenced by Yannick Bestaven’s situation. The Maître CoQ IV skipper who led the race for nearly a month has slumped to 6th. Nothing is certain, even after 67 days of racing. The suspense is building and looks set to ramp up over the next ten to 12 days estimated for the first to finish.

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Boris Herrmann unveiled his adventure at Vendée Globe within the Monaco Ocean Week

At the end of an unusual but effective Monaco Ocean Week where international researchers and experts emphasized how Ocean conservation is essential to ensure us a viable future, a significant event about professional sport to support the environmental cause was being kept on the spotlight.

“ A talk with Boris Herrmann ”, held at the Yacht Club of Monaco on Friday the 26 th March 2021 , was the one-time chance to collect impressions directly from the most popular German skipper of the Monaco’s Malizia II after his extraordinary challenge at the Vendée Globe , one of the hardest sailing competitions consisting of a sailing solo tour around the world.

On the 8 th November 2020, Boris started that unique racing from Les Sables-d’Olonne on board of the Sea Explorer-Yacht Club de Monaco with the strong support of Pierre Casiraghi , his general manager and adventure companion. The skilled yachtsman faced every adversity with lucidity and knowledge, keeping a good place at top ranking. The early tropical storm Theta, approaching the Canary Islands; the so-called Roaring Forties, strong winds blowing in the austral hemisphere; an unexpected rescue operation in favour of Kevin Escoffier’s boat and further headwinds did not discourage Boris who came fifth out of thirty-three participants.

Nevertheless, his participation to the Vendée Globe was also the beginning of a rising sport venture with a strong environmental background. Deeply committed to the climate change and marine preservation as part of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the solo expedition , mostly fuelled by clean energy sources, collected relevant data on CO2 emissions, PH and salinity of sea water, during the whole crossing. Almost following the footsteps of Greta Thunberg’s symbolic Atlantic Ocean crossing that brought her to New York in late August 2019 thanks to Boris and Pierre’s help.

HelloMonaco had the privilege to collect some important considerations directly from Boris Herrmann (B.H.) and Pierre Casiraghi (P.C.) within their exclusive rendezvous.

Pierre, when did the partnership between you and Boris begin?

P.C.:   Our first meeting was in South Africa in 2014, in the occasion of the Cape2Rio challenge. Giovanni Soldini and the Team weren’t on board the vessel yet and Boris was fixing some electronic cables, so I helped him in his tasks. Then we tackled that important regatta in extreme conditions, being able to reach quickly a record which still lasts today. After this successful outcome, we stayed in touch as friends and companions in other races. I still have great memories of our first experience at the 2017 Rolex Fastnet Race . I had a little training from Boris who got a little more experience. We had a great result reaching the third place. I always remember the message we received from the most trained Jean-Pierre Dick who was so amazed that he couldn’t imagine we would chase him right approaching the finish line.

Boris, what do you appreciate most of Pierre?

B.H.: We have definitely a friendly feeling and we shared fun and success together sailing across the oceans. Before meeting him, I didn’t know anything about Pierre and the Principality of Monaco. I was just working in the team of Soldini and I met him by chance. What followed took place in a completely natural way. We invited each other on a series of different trips in our agenda, like the Palermo Montecarlo . Soon after, Pierre launched for the first time the idea of attending the Vendée Globe as a future target, almost a wish at that time. We were lucky enough to achieve a constant winning result. And my participation this year was a teenager’s dream come true.

Pierre, how did you create the Team?

P.C.: The Team is the result of a long-term complex evolution and we ourselves have improved. Of course, nothing was programmed because we don’t have to follow a manual but to adapt to current needs. There are usually from four to eight collaborators up to more, including volunteers and friends, in special occasions. The main idea is to unite everyone around a common proactive spirit. Boris is not only playing as a skipper but he deals with many aspects, including the choice of materials and logistics. To be ready for the Vendée Globe , he had been preparing for six years in order to know any single detail of the sailing craft. This is a great job which eventually becomes an advantage in such a knockout race.

Boris, you have been testing the vessel for a long time, did it help you?

B.H.: This is a technical and practical sport supported now by digital devices. But in the end, it is just you and the natural elements of the sea for almost three months. So, the more you are trained the more you can check everything is working well. Yacht Club de Monaco ‘s support allowed us to start early, trying out the vessel and facing every kind of problem. All this has kept the sailing boat in good conditions up to a few hours before the arrival. The whole race was a struggle and the test was harder than expected especially crossing hotspots like Cape Horn and Cape of Good Hope. Then, being there in constant communication with the entire team and keeping a top-ten position was already an important achievement. From another point of view, I had food reserves for eighty days and luckily it worked perfectly well though, rarely, there was a real moment of tranquillity where to enjoy eating or sleeping since the boat routine needs you constantly.

Boris, how did you manage to confront every day mentally?

B.H.: Well, you had no choice to act differently. “ One day at the time ” was for me the real motto of this long-lasting challenge that is much more than a race.

Boris, have you noticed a lot of changes in the ocean ecosystem this year?

B.H.: In all challenges, we witnessed something changing on a global scale that influenced the length of the journey. What is striking is the abnormal spread of Sargassum algae from the Canary Islands (Equator) up to Northern Atlantic Ocean. But the biggest unseen shift is the one of the increase of temperature and water acidification due to CO2 concentrations. For this purpose, we decided to put a laboratory on board to collect information on the ocean surface through a fully automated high-tech machine, called Ocean Lab , which separates carbon dioxide from the water.   The biggest problem to overcome was the energy supply for all the equipment taken through shipboard solar panels.

Pierre, can you tell something about the scientific side of Vendée Globe mission?

P.C.: The world challenge route included places that are little navigated where nobody got data before. Furthermore, different latitudes could provide a large amount of knowledge that helps drawing far-reaching conclusions so that the evidence gathered constitute a valuable source for science and research.

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