Vendée Globe: Fabrice Amedeo buys a boat after it sank on the Route du rhum


The skipper of Nexans – Art et Fenêtres, who lost his boat on the last Route du rhum, will be at the start of the Vendée Globe 2024.

The news will delight more than one. A month after seeing his Imoca monohull catch fire and then sink during the Route du rhum, Fabrice Amedeo announces good news this Wednesday. The Ile-de-France region bought the former La Mie Câline / Gamesa from Guadeloupe, Rodolphe Sepho, a 2008 generation design by architect Owen Clarke originally built for the Englishman Mike Golding and then skippered by Arnaud Boissières.

With this takeover, the former journalist from Le Figaro is relaunching with a view to his participation in the Vendée Globe 2024 which he will compete on this old boat from which he will remove the small foils (one is broken) to reinstall classic daggerboards. “ It’s an immense satisfaction to be able to start again and think again about the Vendée Globe, he rejoices in a press release. There were other options but they were very expensive or very risky technically and sportingly. I said to myself that after a shipwreck, it was necessary to follow the path of reason: to be at the start of the Vendée Globe will be a great victory and to finish it will be crazy! Starting with extreme choices, I had only feathers to leave. My partners will never reproach me for having been humble and reasonable, on the other hand they would never have understood that I burn my wings on a boat that is too radical or badly born “.

SEE ALSO – Charles Caudrelier, winner of the Route du Rhum responds to Le Figaro

Obviously more modest ambitions

Currently on a freighter returning to Metropolitan France, her Imoca monohull should reach Lorient next week and quickly start work for the transformations. “ We will not be able to play in the race for foils with the latest generation boats which are worth almost 14 times the price of my boat. We are therefore going to follow the path of sobriety led by Jean Le Cam since the last Vendée Globe: a light, reliable, simple boat. We’re going to have more difficulties on the deckchairs, but there’s something to be done in the Vendée Globe, especially in the southern seas. We will also continue to sail for science and contribute, on our scale, to the fight against ocean pollution. “, adds Fabrice Amedeo, happy to be back in the race after this drama of “Rum” with certainly “ more modest sporting ambitions » but always the same thirst to share his adventure. After having retired during the 2020 solo round the world race and then during the 2022 Route du rhum, Fabrice Amedeo had to be at the start of the Vendée Globe 2024 and he will do everything to succeed in reaching the finish. A necessity for his project.



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