A New IMOCA - Boris’ Vision

Drawing on lessons from Malizia - Seaexplorer, skipper Boris Herrmann explains his vision, from its performance objectives to the innovations designed to make it faster, more versatile and prepared for both crewed & solo challenges. This is the blueprint for a boat built to win.

With just five months to go before the launch of our new IMOCA, it’s time to reveal more about the vision Boris has for his new race boat!
Offshore sailing is one of the most innovative worlds in sports, where every gain in performance counts. For Boris and the team, building a new boat isn’t just a matter of preference, it’s essential to remain competitive.

Why build a new boat? The answer is simple: to win races, you need a platform that is faster, more versatile, and optimised for all conditions. Lessons from our previous Malizia - Seaexplorer, combined with observations from other competitors, have driven every decision behind this new design. Other teams are also innovating, and our next IMOCA is designed to take advantage of the latest technological and conceptual advancements.

"I feel enormously privileged that we have a chance again to build a new race boat", comments Boris. "Having the opportunity to again try to do better and try to do something excellent is something we don't take for granted."

Malizia – Seaexplorer was never designed as an all-round compromise!It was born from a very specific memory: Boris’ first Vendée Globe. In 2020–2021, his boat “Seaexplorer - Yacht Club de Monaco” was extremely flat and efficient, capable of surfing at “32 knots, sometimes even quicker,”but brutally unforgiving.

When you’ve been thinking about Malizia – Seaexplorer, launched in July 2022, it’s a very specific design for a very specific vision:
“Yes, it’s the experience from my first Vendée Globe in 2020–2021, given the boat, which was a very efficient hull shape, with very little drag, but it was very flat”, he explains. So if you have a wave, you hit the wave and you feel each wave. That makes it really, really tough to sail the Vendée Globe. I was highly stressed because the boat might surf at 32 knots, sometimes even quicker than the new boat, because I had it so flat and so, you know, zero friction. And then you crash into the next wave and you stop. All the stuff in the boat that’s not tight flies forward, yourself included. So it can be really stressful. That Vendée Globe had a lot of waves and wind in the Southern Ocean. We even had one boat that broke in half, and as I said, ripped all the stuff off, because it was really a rough Vendée Globe.”
He adds: “That influenced a lot of Malizia – Seaexplorer’s boat design, which today I think is the fastest boat for windy downwind conditions. For the Vendée Globe 2024–2025, it was very medium conditions, a lot of reaching, so less helpful. I think we could not really show the strengths of this boat in the last Vendée Globe. But in The Ocean Race, we were able to demonstrate the power of Malizia – Seaexplorer!”

Reflecting on Success

Boris reflects on how to measure a boat’s success: "With the previous boat, the beginning was a bit bumpy, we had technical issues… Then in The Ocean Race, we did the strong Southern Ocean leg… where we almost felt we wrote sailing history flying in the Southern Ocean like no one had done before. I wasn't able to replicate that in the Vendée Globe… Then in the Transat Café L'Or, the crew finished second… If I draw a line now under a four-year campaign, I would say Malizia III was a great success. And it still has great potential to be tapped into."

Looking Forward

"For our new boat, it might be the same”, Boris comments. ”There will always be low moments when you have a technical issue… But we shouldn't let that define the campaign."

Team Malizia’s campaign with the new IMOCA boat will follow the same schedule as the previous one. It begins with crewed races, providing the perfect opportunity to push the boat to its limits and refine its systems. These races will feed directly into preparation for the Vendée Globe, a solo challenge which Boris will take on for the third time and that demands a fully tested, highly performant boat. With this careful progression, Team Malizia’s new IMOCA is poised to carry forward the ambition, precision, and competitive spirit that have defined the team’s past campaigns.

Boris: “My goal with this boat is to win The Ocean Race and to do a great Vendée Globe. We really want to win, with this new boat we are looking for every half kilo that we can scrap out and push everyone! I wouldn't say that there has been really a change in mentality between building Malizia 3 and Malizia 4. We always try to build the best, the fastest, the most solid boat, and there are so many talented people in this environment. We are working with different people now and therefore it's a different process and there are in some ways different philosophies and mentalities. But the overall aim is the same.”

As to how the new boat will differ from the previous one, Boris explains: 
“We’ve been designed this new boat to be much lighter. The weight is an important part of that strategy, everything has to be lighter. “
 He explains:"There are basically two things we can influence when we want to build a fast race boat. We can make it have more power, more horsepower or you can have less drag. In some conditions, Malizia - Seaexplorer had the least drag of the fleet, especially in very light winds because of its hull shape and little wetted surface. 
But you need a boat that is polyvalent across all conditions. The new boat we are building is narrower, more pointy, with more aggressive lines. It might be a little bit more draggy in very wavy, complicated conditions, but overall it should be faster and hopefully better.”

Boris explains that reducing the carbon footprint in the build process was also an aim of the team. We teamed up with two other teams, TR Racing and Team Banque Populaire, and are building three almost identical boats… Therefore we save energy and cost in material, but we are also reusing our design and sharing brainpower."

How will you know if it’s a success? 

As to when it will be clear if the design and all the choices made by the team are successful or not, Boris comments: “After 15 minutes of sailing on the first day we will have a certain idea if we feel good with the boat… And then after four years we will draw a line and see if this concept was right."
He concludes: "I think today I'm less worried than in the previous campaign. I trust the process much more… I trust our design team and our own Malizia design office a lot. I'm less involved in details and decision making. I follow through, I follow along, but I really trust the people. What I'm more worried about is the ecosystem with our competitors… There are a number of teams losing their sponsors… I want more teams for The Ocean Race. So this is my only slight worry, but in general, I'm very confident."

Source : Team Malizia