Team Malizia's Boris Herrmann and Will Harris to sail Transat Jacques Vabre 2023 together
by Team Malizia 5 Jul 2023 07:44 AEST
Team Malizia's Boris Herrmann (right) and Will Harris will be co-skippers in the Transat Jacques Vabre 2023 race © Ricardo Pinto / Team Malizia
Team Malizia's crew for the upcoming Transat Jacques Vabre Normandie Le Havre 2023 is official: German sailor Boris Herrmann and British sailor Will Harris will compete in the famous transatlantic race this fall onboard their Malizia - Seaexplorer race yacht.
It will be the second time that the duo will sail this race after their participation in 2019, when Will Harris just joined Team Malizia.
For the 30-year anniversary of the race, over 100 boats across 4 fleets (Class 40, Ocean Fifty, IMOCA, Ultim) are expected on the start line of the race that will see them sail from Le Havre in Normandie, France, to Fort-de-France on the French island of Martinique in the Caribbean, starting on Sunday 29 October 2023.
Since the first Transat Jacques Vabre participation in 2019, Team Malizia has achieved many milestones: Boris Herrmann finished in fifth place in his first Vendée Globe in 2020-2021, the team built and launched their new race yacht Malizia - Seaexplorer, and just finished on the podium of The Ocean Race 2022-23. Boris Herrmann and Will Harris are currently in Monaco with the rest of the team, for the first time with the new Malizia - Seaexplorer boat, and where the team is celebrating its achievements in the iconic crewed round-the-world race with friends, family and partners.
"Will and I have sailed the Transat Jacques Vabre 2019 and I am very much looking forward to coming back with him, on our new boat Malizia - Seaexplorer and doing this race again," said Boris Herrmann. "This time, it will be a different route, not to Salvador in Brazil but to Martinique. For the first time, we will confront some of the new boats in the IMOCA class that I will compete against in the Vendée Globe next year. Having sailed around the world with Will, and him having skippered the boat in two legs of The Ocean Race, he is the best pick as co-skipper for this race. I'm really excited to do this with him."
The Malizia - Seaexplorer IMOCA race yacht is less than a year old but has already sailed more than a full lap around the globe, with 37,201 nautical miles covered in the iconic Ocean Race alone. Boris Herrmann and Will Harris will therefore enter the competition with a boat that they know by heart, and that has shown to be reliable and perform well. During Leg 5 of The Ocean Race, Team Malizia has also broken the 24-hour distance record in a monohull with 641.13 nautical miles covered.
"I'm really happy to be announcing that I will do the Transat Jacques Vabre with Boris at the end of this year", commented Will Harris. "This race marks me joining the team four years ago when I did it with Boris in 2019 and became a Malizian. It's been a great journey with the team so far, and this race is going to be a fantastic training for Boris ahead of the Vendée Globe next year. With everything we've learned from having sailed around the world in The Ocean Race, I think we can really put a strong entry into it and I'm looking forward to seeing how we will do. It's going to be a good race, good to sail against a lot of other IMOCAs, and I think we have gained a lot of good experience in the last six months that will give us a good advantage."
Sailing in a crew of four sailors and an onboard reporter might not be a mode for upcoming races, but Team Malizia's Ocean Race sailors will still get to see each other. Nico Lunven has been announced as Samantha Davies' co-skipper for the Transat Jacques Vabre 2023 onboard Initiatives-Coeur, and it will be a pleasure for Boris Herrmann and Will Harris to not only see their favourite navigator but also compete against "The Brain" across the Atlantic.
Dutch sailor Rosalin Kuiper, who had always planned to stay with Team Malizia in the longer term, is hoping to find a spot on a boat for the race too. Axelle Pillain is working in the team on electronics and performance, and Yann Eliès will continue to coach IMOCA sailors. Christopher Pratt is sailing on his Ocean Fifty and Antoine Auriol will continue to work on his documentary for French TV. Until fall, Team Malizia's sailors and shore crew will take a well-deserved rest over the summer, work on the boat's refit and train for the upcoming transatlantic race.
Team Malizia's A Race We Must Win - Climate Action Now! mission is only possible due to the strong and long-lasting commitment from its seven main partners: EFG International, Zurich Group Germany, Kuehne+Nagel, MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company, Hapag-Lloyd, Schütz, and the Yacht Club de Monaco. These partners band behind Team Malizia to support its campaign, each of them working towards projects in their own field to innovate around climate solutions.