A tempting competition
Launched in 2023 and entitled The Odyssey experience "The Jeanneau shipyard offered a group of students the chance to sail aboard a Sun Odyssey 410 for a year. This adventure is aimed at young adventure enthusiasts wishing to carry out a humanitarian or environmental project while sailing around the globe.
Not only is the Vendée-based manufacturer providing them with a brand-new 41-foot sailboat, but they will also benefit from pre-sea training modules provided by UCPA: meteorology, mechanics, first aid and survival at sea.
Sail For Tomorow: a band of 5 buddies
The lucky winners of this competition are a group of 5 friends: Arthur, Benjamin, Fanny, Faustine and Iñaki. After completing a ten-page application, they put together a video presentation before being interviewed at the Les Herbiers site. Selected from a shortlist of 5 other candidates, they were notified one by one of the good news at the end of February 2024.
Coming from different backgrounds, their passion for the sea brought them together.
The Sun Odyssey 410 will be handed over to them at the beginning of August. The crew will leave La Rochelle for a trial run to Ireland, before returning to La Rochelle in mid-September. The grand departure will take place after an official ceremony during the Grand Pavois in September 2024.
The 5 friends will follow the classic transatlantic route: Canaries, Cape Verde and West Indies. The rest of the route is less conventional, as the Sun Odyssey will join the Panama Canal, before reaching Polynesia.
The 5 friends will follow an educational program with the schools along the route:
" In collaboration with teachers, we have created an educational program around our adventure: from mathematics to geography, literature and languages, we have set up a number of fun activities to get children interested in learning certain subjects in a different way. "
A partnership with Surfrider Foundation will also enable us to organize beach clean-ups and volunteer activities over the 12 months of the trip.
Attracting young people to your brand
At Jeanneau, this project has been in the works for a long time, as Lisa Delph, in charge of project communications for the Jeanneau shipyard, explains:
" It was originally the idea of Paul Blanc, our former brand manager. We targeted our communications at French schools. We received around 15 applications. We selected the Sail For Tomorow crew for their educational and environmental project, which is in line with Jeanneau's values. Through this project, we want to demonstrate that sailing can be an easily accessible activity for young people ".
