Presentation
For his sixth Vendée Globe campaign, Jean Le Cam returns with a new daggerboard boat, designed by David Raison and built at Persico Marine in Italy. To reduce costs, he has teamed up with Eric Bellion to build two identical round-ended IMOCA boats with daggerboards.
It was Eric Bellion, who wanted to lead a new Vendée Globe campaign, who suggested to Jean that they should pool their projects, with a view to building a boat that would be less expensive and easier to handle on a single-handed round-the-world voyage.
By the spring of 2021, the two men had agreed on the project, with the initial ambition of building three or four boats, so they set about finding an architect and set their sights on an IMOCA neophyte, David Raison, the man who first introduced scow shapes in Mini. "We chose David Raison, firstly because he's an architect who had the audacity to make the first scow-shaped Mini, and secondly because he's very fussy," explains Jean Le Cam.
Once the architect has been found, Jean Le Cam and Eric Bellion will embark on a tour of building sites in July 2021. As the French were all taken, they turned to other European countries, finally choosing Persico Marine in Italy, which has already built LinkedOut (now For The Planet) and Biotherm.
By the time Jean Le Cam takes possession of his IMOCA, he will have sailed Eric Bellion's boat for a few months, which was launched in June 2023, while his was transported to its home port of Port-La-Forêt in August 2023.
