At a press conference in Paris on Thursday, Paprec made official its commitment to Yoann Richomme for a further four years, with a new Imoca boat, but without Arkéa. Tip & Shaft tells you more.
It was in the Vendée Globe room at the Paprec group’s Paris headquarters, where the board meetings are held, that Sébastien Petithuguenin, Paprec’s managing director, surrounded by Yoann Richomme and Romain Ménard, Team Spirit Racing’s team manager, opened the press conference presenting the new Imoca project on Thursday morning. “We’ve decided to continue with Yoann and Team Spirit Racing for a new four-year cycle, with the Vendée Globe 2028 as our goal, because we believe in the long-term commitment that enables us to create performance,” he began.
This decision to embark on a seventh Vendée Globe cycle comes as no surprise to a group which, when it created the Team Spirit Racing structure with Arkéa four years ago after a mixed experience alongside Sébastien Simon in the 2020 Vendée Globe, “had already laid the foundations for continuing“, continues Sébastien Petithuguenin.
All that remained was to find out how, with whom and on what programme. “We really started asking ourselves questions about the next step a year and a half ago,” confides Romain Ménard. It was important to propose a path to our partners and not miss any deadlines. We put everything on the table: Ultim, Imoca with or without The Ocean Race, Class40... And in the end, we very quickly made the selection: today, the Imoca circuit, as well as offering remarkable sporting intensity and interest, offers real media and financial visibility for the partners with a long-lasting circuit and assets that you can resell”.
“We’re starting out on a familiar footing”
Once the decision to return to the Imoca class had been made, the skipper and his team really worked on the project during 2024. “We first validated the decision to build a new boat, because we’re all convinced that with each generation, there’s a little something extra and that if you really want to put all the chances on your side to win the Vendée Globe, a new boat is practically essential,” continues Romain Ménard.
All that remained was to find the architect and shipyard, and the team opted for continuity by choosing Antoine Koch, who this time is designing the boat alone – Finot Conq is providing support on the VPPs, GSea Design on the structure – and Multiplast. “We also consulted VPLP, who presented us with an extremely solid dossier,” comments Yoann Richomme, “but in the end we decided to continue with Antoine, who, with our current boat, has clearly put his finger on something. Our level of satisfaction was quite exceptional and we said to ourselves that we hadn’t reached the end of the story and thought process with him. With Antoine and Multiplast, we’re starting out on a familiar footing, which is a guarantee of quality.”
What will this Imoca, which will enter the construction phase in July with the manufacture of the tooling for a launch at the end of the first quarter of 2027, look like? “The general philosophy will be similar to the current boat, which has some big strengths downwind, particularly in a breeze, but a few shortcomings in medium winds, especially upwind. We’re going to try to keep our qualities and make up for these shortcomings, as there are gains to be made all round,” replies the skipper. Before adding: “We’re in the final weeks of finalizing the hull and we’re starting work on the cockpit design next week. Compared to four years ago, we have a better understanding of an Imoca, which is sailing around the world at an average speed of 18 knots and more than 23 knots a quarter of the time, so we need to find ways of dealing with that on board.”
Arkéa stops
Although virtually all the pieces of the jigsaw for the new project had been put together before the start of the Vendée Globe, two were missing, those of the skipper and the title co-partner, Arkéa. “I took the time to decide to set sail again, firstly because I was afraid I wouldn’t enjoy the Vendée Globe. Secondly, because I wanted to take stock of the situation as a whole, as it’s a burden that doesn’t just fall on me, but above all on my family,” explained Yoann Richomme. In the end, this race went really well, I took it fairly lightly and it took me a month to recover, whereas I was expecting several.”
As for Arkéa, the answer came in February, shortly after the finish: the banking group had decided not to take part again. “The decision was taken a few months ago,” Cédric Malengreau, head of the general secretariat and corporate communications at Crédit Mutuel Arkéa, confirms to Tip & Shaft. We gave ourselves a bit of leeway based on the results of the Vendée Globe, which inevitably led us to reconsider, but in the end, the decision not to continue with the Imoca adventure was confirmed.”
For what reason? “I often say that sports sponsorship is a combination of reason and emotion,” he replies. The emotion was clearly there, we experienced this Vendée Globe cycle in an intense and exceptional way, but there is also an economic rationale, we had to make trade-offs given the general context”. The possibility of remaining a partner, albeit at a lesser level, although raised, “was quickly abandoned, because we felt that the adventure as we had built it up with Paprec was a great one, and it was difficult to imagine a new relationship with them,” adds Cédric Malengreau. On the subject of Arkéa, who is still involved in the second edition of the Arkea Ultim Challenge and in the Brétagne-Crédit Mutuel de Bretagne network, he adds: “It’s not impossible that we’ll be back in different forms, but certainly not on a new Imoca project.”
What programme for 2026?
This decision to stop, confirmed to Paprec shortly after the Vendée Globe, has led Sébastien Petithuguenin to decide “to take on the entire naming alone“, even if other partners could join the project. “It’s neither a default choice, nor a forced one,” explains the managing director, who talks about “doubling the financial effort, the biggest sponsorship in Paprec’s history”. How much? 9 million for the boat and a budget of around 12 million euros over four years, while the renovation and extension of Glorieux 1, Team Spirit Racing’s building in Lorient, cost 2.5 million euros.
A second Imoca yacht is due to move in shortly, while Yoann Richomme’s team has confirmed that a sistership to the future Paprec will probably be built in the same moulds, with a launch date in May/June 2027. “It‘s been organised, but nothing has been signed,” explains Sébastien Petithuguenin, who refuses to confirm the identity of the future skipper – Sam Goodchild according to our information.
On the subject of the programme, the Managing Director explains that The Ocean Race 2027 is not on the agenda: “We asked ourselves the question, but we ruled it out for two reasons: firstly, because even though Paprec has developed internationally, for the moment it’s mainly in Europe, and we don’t want to develop on a wider scale so far. Secondly, because we don’t want to set ourselves the wrong goal, we want to stay focused on the Vendée Globe. Now, the group will continue to grow, so it’s possible that we’ll be there one day.” And Yoann Richomme will probably take part in “one or two legs” in 2027, as he specifies.
As Paprec is due to be launched in the spring of 2027, there will be no Route du Rhum on the programme in 2026 either, a year in which Yoann Richomme has no races so far. “It will give me a breather, which was also a criterion for me, as I didn’t want to start again headlong at the same pace for four years. Now, why not do the Solitaire, to which Paprec is attached? We haven’t yet considered the question of the 2026 programme, which we’ll do this summer, but the idea is to arrive in 2027 with a lot of energy.” He will need this energy as Sébastien Petithuguenin is clear about the ambition of this new cycle: “We’re aiming for victory, and that’s clearly a high goal.”
Photo : polaRYSE / Paprec Arkéa Team
