French skipper Paul Meilhat will fulfil a lifelong dream in January 2023 when he leads Biotherm across the starting line of The Ocean Race on the waters off Alicante, Spain.

Meilhat and his team will be racing one of the newest IMOCA boats in the fleet, a Verdier design that is expected to compete for the title in The Ocean Race 2022-23, before Meilhat will go on to sail in the next edition of the single-handed Vendée Globe.

“I am very happy to officially announce our participation in The Ocean Race with Biotherm,” Meilhat says. “I have been working to be at the start of this event for the last three years.

“Everything about The Ocean Race excites me. It’s about the sport, but it’s also about travelling around the world and being able to discover other countries and create links with new people; all of this is great and I’m keen to feel the full story of one of the great events in our sport.

"We are lucky to have a great boat to participate in the entire IMOCA Globe Series programme. I am thrilled that we have secured our participation in The Ocean Race, which adds a new, even more international dimension to our campaign.

"This opportunity is important to both the sporting side of the project, with the sailing team hungering to take on this incredible challenge, as well as for our title sponsor Biotherm, an international skincare brand in the L’Oréal Group. Biotherm has been dedicated to ocean protection for over 10 years and the brand’s values are​ very much in line with The Ocean Race, committed to bringing people together to protect the health of the ocean.”

Like many IMOCA sailors, Meilhat is well known for his ability competing short-handed. He is a winner of the Route du Rhum and the Fastnet Race as well as being the IMOCA Globe Series champion in 2021. But he also has experience and an ambition to race in a crewed format, and says the two disciplines complement each other.

Paul Meilhat and Richard Brisius shake hands at Race Control in Alicante | Credit: Alexander Champy-McLean/The Ocean Race

“From a sporting standpoint, it's great to have the opportunity to race around the world, to test our boats and to compete with the best with a full crew on board. It’s a different culture with a lot of engagement on board between the sailors,” he says.

“The crew brings a real dynamic. On The Ocean Race Europe, we clearly saw that there was good energy on the boats and notable progress over the rest of the season.

“Racing with a crew also allows us to sail more than we do alone. During The Ocean Race we will sail almost more than on the entire IMOCA solo or double-handed programme over the next three years. This volume of racing is very beneficial, with the stopovers allowing for development, restarting, and so on.

“The new format of The Ocean Race matches perfectly with our current IMOCA programme and schedule. It's one of the great races which is consistent with what we do and which has the advantage of taking us to the Southern Ocean, sailing in difficult and challenging conditions, which helps us develop our boats and ourselves as sailors.”

The new Biotherm is expected to be launched in August and will compete in the Route de Rhum this autumn before returning to Alicante, Spain for the start of The Ocean Race on 15 January next year.

“It’s fantastic to have Paul and his Biotherm team confirm they will join The Ocean Race,” Johan Salén, managing Director of The Ocean Race said. “Paul was among the first IMOCA skippers to signal his ambition and intention to compete and we know he worked very hard over the past three years to bring this project to the start line. We’re looking forward to seeing him race.”

Paul Meilhat’s Biotherm joins skipper Boris Herrmann’s Team Malizia and skipper Charlie Enright’s 11th Hour Racing Team as confirmed IMOCA campaigns for The Ocean Race 2022-23. The full list of registered teams in both the IMOCA and V65 classes can be found on the official race website, and The Ocean Race promises further team announcements shortly.

Paul Meilhat’s IMOCA victory in the Route du Rhum over the weekend is all the sweeter as he achieved it in the same boat he’d feared lost on an earlier transatlantic crossing almost three years ago.

The French yachtsman had been airlifted off SMA on 15 December 2015 and the 60-footer SMA was abandoned in the Azores — though it drifted towards Ireland in the following weeks and was eventually recovered some 100 miles off the coast and berthed in Crookhaven.

“It’s amazing to think that our efforts three years ago to recover that boat against pretty tough odds have now resulted in the boat and Paul winning the Route du Rhum,” says Kinsale-linked offshore specialist Marcus Hutchinson, who was Paul’s project manager for the first three years of his IMOCA campaign.

Paul Meilhat (SMA) Route du Rhum's winner Photo: Alexis Courcoux

“He was a successful Figaro sailor when he turned to the IMOCA scene then and is now clearly in the top flight there, too,” Marcus adds.

Despite that serious incident in 2015, which left Paul with a fractured pelvis, Marcus said the Frenchman only grew with confidence over the years he was in charge of the project.

That was most obvious when, before a keel ram failure forced retirement in January last year, Paul sailed his way into third place in the Vendée Globe without the foils and newer boat technology employed by the rest of the field since his boat, in the hands of Francois Gabard, previously won that circumnavigation challenge.

Later in the year, Paul secured second in the Transat Jacques Vabre, again putting his foiling competitors to shame. It was at this time that his boat’s sponsor SMA decided to withdraw from offshore racing, meaning the most recent 12 months would be the last under their livery.

It’s quite the capper on that relationship that Paul has sailed SMA to victory in the Route du Rhum, says Marcus.

“I’m very happy for the team. I’m no longer a part of that group, but it is a small world and we see each other almost every day. Paul’s boat captain, for example, is a lodger in my house.”

Looking closer to home, Marcus sees the achievements of people like Paul Meilhat as an inspiration for Irish sailors with offshore ambitions, particularly with a new Olympic class on the cards for Paris in 2024.

“Irish offshore sailing is pretty well placed to step up to the next level and prepare to be competitive in 2024,” he says. “The kind of boat that will be used for that regatta is not really relevant to understanding and improving at the top end of offshore racing.

“The racing circuit in France, with the super competitive Figaro circuit in particular, is the place to be if you have any ambitions. Joan Mulloy and Tom Dolan are currently fundraising in Ireland for next year’s Figaro circuit and potentially an Irish stopover for that race, too.”

Marcus adds that 50 Figaro Beneteau 3s have already been sold and will be released in January.

“I have two of them in my academy. These are the platforms to train on. Anyone who has ambitions for 2024 should start to consider getting involved in this type of racing.”

Six months ago Paul Meilhat (SMA) was airlifted off his boat to the Azores and hospitalised after fracturing his pelvis and rib during a sail change in big seas during the Transat St Barth/Port-La-Forêt. His yacht was located in the Atlantic by Marcus Hutchinson and towed into Crookhaven and repaired in Kinsale. Today the 34-year-old Vendée Globe rookie from Brest finished in 4th place in the inaugural 2016 New York – Vendée (Les Sables d’Olonne) Race. 

Meilhat crossed the finish line off Les Sables d’Olonne this morning at 09:59:27 (French time). He covered the course in 10 days 12 hrs 19 mins and 27 seconds. He finished 19 hours 21 minutes and 35 seconds behind the winner, Jérémie Beyou, (Maître CoQ).

Meilhat sailed 3,682 miles at an average speed of 14.59 knots. The theoretical racecourse was 3,100 miles, but Meilhat has sailed the furthest of the finishers so far, 220 miles more than Beyou.

He has just completed his first two solo Transats in an IMOCA in just over a month - after racing to New York in The Transat – and has finished fourth in both.

“We’ve done two transats in just over a month – that’s happiness,” he said. “I still have work to do but I’m starting to have fun. The mid-Atlantic was true to its reputation with strong winds, and having to manage a depression. That was something I hadn’t done before and it will resemble what we’ll be going through in a few months in the South Seas (for the Vendée Globe).”

SMA is the former Macif, which smashed the Vendée Globe record in 2012-13. It is the first non-foiling boat home – foilers have won the last three transatlantic races now – and was never quite able to keep pace with the lead group of three, who finished yesterday. But given his relative inexperience, and recent trauma, he sailed his own race impressively. He has been alone, sometimes separated by over 150 miles, since he moved into 4th place on Saturday as Vincent Riou (PRB) and Tanguy de Lamotte (Initiatives Coeur) suffered technical problems.

The group chasing him have had to take a similarly northern route up to the Brittany coast, in glassy flat seas and erratic winds, before they descend to Les Sables d’Olonne. At the 13:00 UTC ranking, Riou, in 5th, led de Lamotte by 22 miles, with Kojiro Shiraishi (Spirit of Yukoh) a further 30 miles back. Today’s easterly winds will rotate north in the night and northwest tomorrow and will be fluky to the finish, so nobody will be relaxing quite yet.

“It’s amazing, we’re all battling it out together,” de Lamotte said. “Kojiro really surprised me, the way he’s sailed so cleanly, he’s got good speed for not having the boat for so long. It’s a great performance for him. I’m quite used to the light winds – and it is summertime in the Bay of Biscay. I did six tacks yesterday, which was really demanding, but it’s quite fun getting the boat going.”

Riou is predicted to arrive anywhere between 04:00 and 10:00 on Friday morning with the other two coming in between 12:00 and 17:00. And Fabrice Amedeo (Newrest - Matmut), in 8th keeps eating up the miles, making another 25 so far today to come within 35 of Shiraishi.

“I’ve got 3 knots of south-east wind at the moment and I really, really, really want a Code 0, can you send me one? Will the Race Office allow that?” Shiraishi asked plaintively earlier. “I think it’s the same for everyone out here. If I had a Code 0 maybe I could compete with Tanguy, but I’ve got an A3 up…”

500 miles behind them, in the battle of the wounded boats, Morgan Lagravière (Safran) leads Yann Eliès (Quéguiner – Leucémie Espoir) by just 10 miles and has gybed away toward the north coast of Spain. After the gamble of heading deep south of the Azores did not pay out, Jean-Pierre Dick (StMichel - Virbac), keeps losing ground and is now almost 90 miles behind Eliès. But the race is not over and the gaps are likely to reduce in the coming days. Their westerly wind is forecast to gradually turn south-west and then ease off for their arrivals, which are now predicted to be overnight on Saturday and into Sunday.

Behind them the two backmarkers are finally into a good stride, with south-westerlies driving them up to 18 knots, as they try to stay ahead of a front as long as possible. Pieter Heerema (No Way Back) is just 5 miles behind Conrad Colman (100% Natural Energy). They are predicted to arrive on Sunday in the late afternoon.