The Open60AAL Innovation Yachts was launched on Tuesday 26 March 2019 in Les Sables-d'Olonne after a 5-month optimisation project. "Everything is working very well and today our team has started rigging and mast adjustments."
From now on, it will be necessary to carry out reliability tests which will start at the end of next week to check that everything is ready. After several weeks of testing, Norbert Sedlacek will join Horta, Azores on May 11, 2019. The start of the world record attempt will be on July 21, 2019.
As a reminder, the Austrian skipper had already tried the adventure in July 2018 before making u-turn due to unreliability of the boat . An architecture that had already been discovered on the Princess R35 and which did not inspire the Italian manufacturer. A new departure date had been quickly announced, but the launch of the boat makes this new trip a little more concrete.
A world record around the world
Norbert Sedlacek's challenge will be a solo, non-stop, unassisted round-the-world trip across all the world's oceans, including the Arctic and Antarctica. The start will be from Les Sables-d'Olonne and then southwestern Greenland to continue northwest through the Northwest Passage (north of Canada and Alaska).
After the Bering Sea, Norbert will sail south across the Pacific Ocean to round Cape Horn for the first time. Then he will go around Antarctica, then round Cape Horn a second time and finally sail up the Atlantic to return to Les Sables-d'Olonne.
This 34,000 mile route is expected to last approximately seven months.
A "revolutionary" boat
For his world tour, Norbert Sedlacek at the helm of the Open60AAL, the first racing boat built with rock fibres.
"Fully recyclable and skin-friendly building materials, 100% renewable energy from hydrogen generators and solar panels, new materials and technologies to protect the body and many other exciting developments for more safety, strength, quality, functionality and protection of the environnement?!"
Reliability of a different construction
Through this project, the Austro-French shipyard Innovation-Yachts hopes to make these new materials and the way they are built reliable (confirmation of quality, safety, functionality, durability), but also to warn about the environment.
