The former IMOCA La Mie Caline on its way to Lorient
During the last Route du Rhum 2022, only 5 days after the start of the race, Fabrice Amedeo was forced to abandon his boat on fire, after an explosion. Thanks to his sponsor Nexans âeuros Art et Fenêtres, he bought back before Christmas the former La Mie Caline-Gamesa, an Owen Clarke design from 2008, to the Guadeloupean Rodolphe Sepho. The IMOCA is currently on a cargo ship and should arrive in Lorient mid-January 2023. Other choices could have been considered by the team, but they were too expensive or risky.
The choice of sobriety
In 2017, the yacht had been equipped with a new mast and foils for Arnaud Boissières, its former owner. But it is another choice that Fabrice Amédeo and his sponsor have chosen to make. In the image of the sobriety project initiated by Jean Le Cam, the skipper and his team will remove the foils and replace them with drifts. The ballast tanks will be transformed to be more efficient, which will also lighten the boat. A transformation from foils to daggerboards, probably dictated by the budget, but which remains a first to our knowledge.
Making a move on the Vendée Globe 2024
Fabrice Amédéo explains: "The boat has a broken foil. It makes more sense and is cheaper to switch back to daggerboards than to put in new foils or to replace the broken foil. We won't be able to play in the foil race with the latest generation of boats that are worth nearly 14 times the price of my boat. So we're going to follow the sober path that Jean Le Cam has been following since the last Vendée Globe: a light, reliable, simple boat. We're going to have more difficulties in the transatlantic races, but we have a chance to win the Vendée Globe, especially in the southern seas. We will also continue to sail for science and contribute, in our own way, to the fight against ocean pollution."
