SolOceans - News - Three years before the start of the SolOceans (10/25/2006)

Three years before the start of the SolOceans

Wednesday October 25th 2006 News RSS

In three years, October 25th 2009, the first SolOceans will depart from France to New Zealand. The SolOceans is the first single-handed oceanic round the world race that will be sailed on an equal footing on perfectly identical (sails comprised) sixteen-metre Oceanic One Design^® monohulls with under-controlled costs. Solo-sailors will sail on a France - New Zealand - France course around the three capes: Good-Hope, Leeuwin and Horn, in two legs about fifty to fifty-five days each. The SolOceans therefore can be considered as a springboard to the Vendée Globe.

Preform of the hull - October 24th, 2006 Technologie Marine in Saint-Philibert (Brittany) is carrying out the construction of the preform of the Oceanic One Design^®, and the moulds of the hull should be ready within two months.
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Photo Jean-Marie Liot - SailingOne

Prior to the big 2009 start, in just a year, October 25th 2007, the first Oceanic One Design^® will leave France for a reconnaissance (warm up) of the SolOceans' route. This dress rehearsal will enable the carrying out of a large-scale test and the issue of a reference time. However, this journey will be two-man crewed and not single-handed, in order to intensely but safely solicit the new-born yacht on the one hand, and to allow more than one skipper to try the one-design in the same conditions as the ones they will encounter in 2009-2010, on the other hand. There has never been such warm up in oceanic racing yet. It is also an opportunity to test live image transmissions to TVs.

According to our schedule we revealed June 15th during the press conference in Paris at the French Sailing Federation's headquarters, tooling of the Oceanic One Design^®, the monohull Finot-Conq Group has designed following the advices of Michel Desjoyeaux, skipper of Géant and Hervé Laurent, circumnavigator, are actually being achieved by Technologie Marine in Brittany.

The present priority consists in appointing the departure and arrival sites of the SolOceans in France and New Zealand. "As far as the French site is concerned, given the actual discussions, the name of the hosting port should be made official at the very start of the 2007 first calendar quarter," asserts Yvan Griboval, idea-man and general coordinator of the SolOceans. "At this stage, we have excluded the possibility of a Mediterranean site and will thus choose among sites on the Atlantic or on the English Channel. This is a tough choice because besides the event organization of the SolOceans, its storefront, i.e. its start and arrival, the industrial, financial and social part of the operation also has to be carried out. Indeed, the offer we made to the sites involves the establishment of CAFITECH society, the construction and maintenance site of the Oceanic One Design^® monohulls that will create over twenty jobs in the course of early 2007. A vocational training track regarding transformation of carbon related jobs, an apprenticeship cell as well as a social integration plan of action for young people in difficulties would be carried out as well. As you can see, this is not just about a simple sports competition, it goes way beyond. The enthusiastic welcome most elected officials have given us presages a decision quite shortly. As far as New Zealand is concerned, exchanges tend to intensify and we also think that we will soon be settled."

In order to achieve our goal of having built and sold a dozen Oceanic One Design^® monohulls ready to be on the starting line of the first SolOceans, October 25th 2009, the production Christian Brit manages will have to start next February. Disclosing the site in which Oceanic One Design^® monohulls will be build, will then be equivalent to revealing the departure and arrival hosting port of the SolOceans.