A new IMOCA for Boris Herrmann's Team Malizia: Three teams have joined forces to build three boats
by Team Malizia 20 May 07:01 BST
Boris Herrmann (Team Malizia), Thomas Ruyant (TR Racing), and Loïs Berrehar (Team Banque Populaire) © Eloi Stichelbaut / polaRYSE / TR Racing / Team Malizia / BPCE
Boris Herrmann's Team Malizia announces the build of a new IMOCA racing yacht and with it, an unprecedented collaboration.
For the first time in recent IMOCA class history, three teams, Team Malizia, TR Racing (Thomas Ruyant), and Team Banque Populaire (Loïs Berrehar), have joined forces to co-design and build three new IMOCA yachts. Harnessing their collective experience and ambition, the teams are working alongside naval architect Antoine Koch, design office Finot-Conq and Gsea Design. The yachts will be built by the CDK shipyard, and while they share a common design, each team will make subtle modifications to tailor their IMOCA to each skipper's philosophy of offshore racing. Team Malizia's IMOCA will be launched in June 2026.
Team Malizia and skipper Boris Herrmann are proud to announce the build of a new IMOCA racing yacht, marking the beginning of an exciting new chapter in the team's offshore racing journey. After sailing more than 100,000 nautical miles onboard Malizia - Seaexplorer, including two circumnavigations and six transatlantic races, Team Malizia will soon be turning the page, handing over their IMOCA boat to Team Francesca Clapcich Powered By 11th Hour Racing and taking on the next challenges with a cutting-edge new foiling boat.
For this new project, Team Malizia are joining forces with two teams, TR Racing (Thomas Ruyant) and Team Banque Populaire (Loïs Berrehar). In a first in the IMOCA class history, three experienced teams have chosen to work closely together to co-design and build their new racing machines. "We are pooling expertise and brainpower but also sharing tooling which, amongst others, helps to reduce the environmental footprint of the build", explains skipper Boris Herrmann.
Designed by architects Antoine Koch, the Finot-Conq firm and Gsea Design, the boats are under construction at the CDK shipyard in Lorient, France, and will be launched in 2026-2027. Team Malizia's new IMOCA is the second boat to be built and will be launched in June 2026. Developed to push performance further while reflecting the team's commitment to sustainability and science, Team Malizia's new IMOCA is developed to compete at the highest level of solo and crewed offshore racing.
"Antoine Koch is a friend and a highly talented architect", comments Boris Herrmann. "I had wanted to work with him for a long time, and now not only are we entrusting him with our new boat design, we are also doing it with TR Racing and Team Banque Populaire, two top-performing teams with a wealth of experience. Together, we are bringing together skills, learning from each other's experiences, challenging one another, and thus pushing ourselves, in order to hopefully build the best boats of the future generation." The Team Malizia skipper adds: "We share know-how but also the construction, moulds, and production tools, in order to considerably reduce the carbon footprint of the build. With this approach, we can reduce emissions as well as costs while pushing innovation."
"It is indeed quite rare in naval architecture to see such a coordinated approach involving three distinct entities", Antoine Koch comments. "The belief that we could achieve significant gains in reducing both the environmental impact of construction and the overall lifecycle of the boats led us to combine the efforts and expertise of three renowned teams. Simply sharing the tooling for three yachts should help reduce the environmental impact of the build and generate economies of scale, a way to better respond to the challenges of our time. Tooling alone accounts for just under half of a single boat's carbon emissions. Each boat will therefore have a reduced carbon footprint. We are thus working on a single design rather than three separate projects, made possible by the full and open collaboration of three teams who remain competitors on the water."
"This new boat will be quite different from our current boat", details Boris Herrmann. "Antoine has designed two highly performing boats, including Thomas' current VULNERABLE, which serves as the starting point for the design of the new IMOCA, which is a beautiful one that I strongly believe in." Architect Antoine Koch adds: "The boat's rounded hull shape makes life on board more comfortable and less brutal, moving well through the water. We know its strengths, especially downwind in rough conditions, but we have also identified its weaknesses: upwind and in flat water. We are working to improve its versatility. Our aim is to gain in transition phases, make up for our minor "gaps" in light winds, and continuously improve how the boat handles waves. The devil is in the detail, and we are making progress across the board."
Boris Herrmann comments: "Thomas and I have been friends for many years, and we raced together in the 2017 Transat Jacques Vabre. I have a lot of respect for him as a sailor, and he has a hugely experienced team, with three Vendée Globe campaigns behind them. Team Banque Populaire also have a top-tier design office and are now returning to the IMOCA class with Loïs as skipper. Although it's his debut in the class, I've known Loïs since he was just a kid and back in 2008, he christened my Class 40 Beluga Racer. This year, he'll be sailing with Team Malizia as a co-skipper in The Ocean Race Europe 2025. Now, our three teams are working together alongside Antoine, and it's a real privilege to be working with these brilliant people. That kind of cooperation is rare in our sport, and it's made the process of designing our new boat both inspiring and energising. This new boat reflects that spirit: innovative, precisely developed, and full of potential."
Team Malizia's Technical Director Pierre-François Dargnies notes: "Boris' philosophy is really about sharing ideas and pooling wherever possible and working together this closely with TR Racing and Team Banque Populaire's design offices has been a great process. Although the boats will have the same hull, amongst other identical features, each team will tailor their boat to their sailor's need, for example with the ergonomics."
Thomas Ruyant comments: "This project builds on the foundation Antoine Koch and I have developed since 2019. He contributed to my previous boat, LinkedOut (a 2019 Verdier design), working on two versions of our foils. He is the architect, alongside Finot-Conq, of my current IMOCA VULNERABLE, which has become the reference point for the design brief driven by this shared ambition to pool the expertise of three ambitious teams. Antoine is bursting with ideas. He has a highly rational, analytical mind, and our communication feels almost instinctive. Banque Populaire and their teams, who have performed at a high level across various classes, are bringing their own unique perspective. I am friends with Boris, born from our time racing together, again in a Transat Jacques Vabre. Malizia also has an excellent design office. Their current boat (a 2022 VPLP design) is very different to ours, and we're learning a lot from their recent experience. Together, we are looking into the finer details as we work to improve from VULNERABLE's base. Versatility is the key word, particularly improving the boat's performance in light winds and its ability to get up to speed quickly."
Loïs Berrehar says: "Pooling resources with two other teams means bringing more brains together to consider different options. It's a rewarding and exciting process to design a boat this way. I find it particularly interesting to do this alongside teams whose skippers already have strong Vendée Globe experience (two campaigns for Boris, three for Thomas). What's crucial for this boat is its ability to handle heavy seas well. If you're going to launch a Formula 1 car into a bumpy field, it needs to be tough enough! Antoine Koch and his team's hull studies are very insightful in this regard. As a team, we've been able to add our own touch and input... and the further we progress, the more exciting the project becomes!"
The launch of their new IMOCA will mark the beginning of an ambitious calendar of offshore races for Team Malizia. Boris Herrmann explains: "This new chapter will lead us toward the Vendée Globe 2028, but first, we are excited to announce that we will take part in The Ocean Race Atlantic 2026 and The Ocean Race 2027. The next years will once again be filled with both crewed and solo races."
With this new IMOCA, Team Malizia continues a mission that began in 2016, combining high-performance offshore racing with a commitment to Ocean science, education, and ambitious climate action. Since then, every race has been an opportunity to collect vital CO2 data and deploy scientific instruments in some of the most remote and under-sampled regions of the world. This new racing yacht will also continue to serve as a platform to inspire and educate the next generation on ocean and climate topics. Building on the legacy of their A Race We Must Win - Climate Action Now! mission, and now strengthened by the addition of their dedicated science and outreach vessel, Malizia Explorer, the team will keep using the adventure of their sport to raise awareness about the state of our Ocean and the urgent need to protect it.
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: the Yacht Club de Monaco, EFG International, Zurich Group Germany, Kuehne+Nagel, MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company, Hapag-Lloyd, Schütz. 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.