The official info fell on Tuesday shortly after 4 p.m.
Jérémie Beyou and the Charal company will continue their collaboration until 2026. Thirteenth in the last edition of the Vendée Globe, after having been obliged to return to Les Sables d'Olonne to repair four days after the start following damage and a shock with an Ofni, Jérémie Beyou will rebuild an Imoca monohull with the Charal logo to set off again during the 2024 round-the-world edition.
The goal of this new project?
“I want this project to look like me and look like Charal.
I want us to be ambitious but to have fun there, ”explained the skipper, happy to have access to a new Imoca, which will be launched on June 30, 2022.
"The Vendée Globe is a very complicated race to finish but also to prepare"
Jeremiah Beyou
During the press conference, neither he, nor Mathieu Bigard, the director of the Bigard group, mentioned the word “victory” to talk about the next edition of the Vendée Globe. "Nothing is ever acquired, it is in a very long time," replied Jérémie Beyou. “The project is made to be on the podium in 2024,” added Mathieu Bigard. As for the previous edition, the Breton will obviously aim for victory in four years, even if prudence reigns logically after his disappointment during an unsuccessful fourth participation due to an early mechanical breakage. “The Vendée Globe is a very complicated race to finish but also to prepare. Over the past four years, we've done a good job. Having succeeded in carrying this project to the end made me fall in love with racing even more. I really want to go back.And the right solution is to build a new boat ”.
The Route du Rhum 2022 with the new boat
For this Charal 2, the construction cost of which was estimated "in the market costs, or 5-6 million euros", by Mathieu Bigard, the three-time winner of the Solitaire du Figaro and his collaborators from the Charal Sailing Team have chose to work with architect Sam Manuard. “Armel Tripon's boat he designed caught my eye. He has his convictions, he knows where he wants to go but it is done in the exchange. He is a talented sailor, we speak the same language, ”said Beyou, indicating that the bow of the future boat, whose model and the first molds are under construction, would be“ spatulated ”, therefore less thin and long. than the previous one. “The reflection is underway,” added the fashionable architect. And do we want a very powerful hull or one that goes better in the water? ". Scow way,those rounded bow boats that have appeared in the 6.50m and 40ft classes? "We will have to wait for the launch" to find out, laughed Beyou, just announcing that the CDK shipyard in Lorient had been selected.
# ConferenceCharal
Mathieu Bigard: "The brand's ambition is long-term, with # VG2024 as its highlight, thanks to a high-performance boat and a committed and determined skipper."
⛵️
# CharalSailingTeam # VivonsFort # OnlyBeyoupic.twitter.com / ymNpWKfWpy
- Jérémie Beyou - Charal Sailing Team (@JeremieBeyou) May 4, 2021
Regarding the timing of this construction, he specified that he would have two more months than at the launch of Charal 1 to prepare the Route du rhum 2022 that he will compete in his new Imoca, the 2021 season (and in particular the Transat Jacques Vabre next November with Christopher Pratt) taking place with the “old boat”.
“There will not be two Charal boats on the next Vendée Globe,” concluded Mathieu Bigard, thus opening the door to the sale of a high-performance boat even if it did not win the 2020-2021 round-the-world race. .
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