IMOCA and 11th Hour Racing to continue their successful partnership in 2025

by Ed Gorman / IMOCA Globe Series 10 May 19:10 AEST

IMOCA and 11th Hour Racing to continue their successful partnership in 2025 © mory Ross / 11th Hour Racing / The Ocean Race

The International Monohull Open Class Association (IMOCA) has renewed its partnership with 11th Hour Racing for the 2025 season.

As IMOCA's Official Sustainability Partner, 11th Hour Racing will help drive sustainable innovation in boat construction and maintenance, support diversity and inclusion initiatives, and advance female leadership roles within the Class.

The renewal of the partnership between IMOCA and 11th Hour Racing follows a successful collaboration in 2024, which included the development of a pioneering Impact Reduction Rule on boat construction, a new sail rule designed to reduce the environmental impact of sail manufacturing, and programmes on collision avoidance at sea, carbon fibre recycling, the use of alternative materials and a global science cooperation programme.

Among the goals this year is to bring those initiatives to maturity and to further embed sustainable values within team activities with the appointment of a dedicated person in each team who will serve as a reference point for sustainable practices. This dedicated person will be the sustainability reference point for the team, and that person does not necessarily have to have a sustainability background, so this could be any post: the skipper, logistics manager, boat captain and others.

In IMOCA, meanwhile, a female leadership development manager will be appointed by the Class and will oversee the women in leadership positions in every team entered in this season's Ocean Race Europe.

Antoine Mermod, the President of the IMOCA Class, welcomed the renewal of the relationship with 11th Hour Racing—former title sponsor of 11th Hour Racing Team that won The Ocean Race in 2023—as a unique partner, driven both by its commitment to high-performance racing, paired with a strong, values-driven focus on environmental sustainability, social equity, and the advancement of diversity and inclusion within the sport.

"We are so incredibly lucky to have 11th Hour Racing with us on this journey," said Mermod. "They are a purpose-driven brand whose values match our own. I think the partnership this year, following on from a successful year in 2024, reflects both organisations' determination to anchor sustainability within offshore racing through IMOCA activities.

"Also, it will not just be IMOCA that benefits from this partnership, but the whole offshore racing community, because what we produce and do together will be available to the whole community. Finally, this reaffirmation of our mutual commitment brings to both organisations the great benefit of continuity as we continue to bring to maturity the initiatives that we started together last year," added Mermod.

Jeremy Pochman, co-founder and CEO of 11th Hour Racing, said, "The IMOCA Class's shift toward more sustainable practices, and the inclusion of more women's voices in leadership roles both on and off the boats, has paralleled radical innovation in design, build, and performance. We don't see this as a coincidence, and we're proud to deepen our commitment to these efforts, which we believe is the course to chart toward a more exciting, sustainable, and high-performing future."

Appointing a sustainability officer within each IMOCA team is a key step in strengthening the Class's commitment to sustainability from the inside out. Recognising that teams often operate with limited resources, 11th Hour Racing's funding supports practical tools, training, and workshops—making it easier for teams of all sizes to integrate sustainable practices into their daily operations.

"The idea is that each team nominates one person - some teams will have a dedicated person on sustainability, others will use their logistics manager, for example, as the reference point for sustainability," explained Imogen Dinham-Price, Sustainability and Partnerships Manager at IMOCA. "They will regularly come together for meetings organised by IMOCA and we will provide them with the resources they need - a charter to follow, guidance on waste, on carbon emissions, a carbon impact calculator and a host of workshops to get them involved throughout the year. Ultimately the aim is to embed sustainability in every team's activity within the fleet, whether they be big or small."

The female leadership development programme, which placed female shore crew in IMOCA teams last year, will now be led by a dedicated manager, hired by the IMOCA Class. The goal is to collaborate with the teams entered in The Ocean Race Europe to appoint a woman to a leadership role in each team.

"It could be a sailor or perhaps a boat captain, a technical director or a team manager. The aim is to help women develop skills in these roles that ultimately will see them use them throughout the Class and elsewhere in the offshore racing community," said Dinham-Price.

Among the other programmes which are continuing from last year, further development and expansion of the Reduced Impact Sail Evaluation (RISE) initiative, which is developing sails for IMOCA with reduced environmental impact, is expected in the coming months. The next steps in the development of the Impact Reduction Rule, which reduces harmful emissions in boat construction in a historic turning point in the maritime industry, will also be announced.