Boris Herrmann (born 28 May 1981) is a German yachtsman and author competing mostly in offshore races in the

IMOCA 60 The IMOCA ("Open 60") is a 60ft (18.3 m) development class monohull sailing yacht governed by the International Monohull Open Class Association (IMOCA). The class pinnacle event are single or two person ocean races, such as the Route du Rhum an ...

class. He placed fifth in the 2020/21 Vendée Globe and third in the

2023 The Ocean Race The Ocean Race 2023 was the 14th edition of the round-the-world The Ocean Race. It started in Alicante, Spain. The COVID-19 pandemic forced the organizers to delay the race planned for 2021–22. Participants A total of 11 boats participated i ...

. With the experiences of these races he wrote two books. He is currently preparing his campaign for the 2024/25 Vendée Globe with the Malizia-Seaexplorer, the first boat developed under his own management. Together with

Pierre Casiraghi Pierre Rainier Stefano Casiraghi (born 5 September 1987) is the younger son and youngest of three children of Caroline, Princess of Hanover, and her second husband, Stefano Casiraghi. He is the maternal-line grandson of Rainier III, Prince o ...

he founded the sailing team Team Malizia to support his IMOCA 60 campaign. The team belongs to the most professional and financially more competitive teams in the IMOCA 60 class.

Early life

Boris Herrmann was born on 28 May 1981 in Oldenburg, Lower Saxony where he grew up in a household enthusiastic towards sailing. He finished school at the Neues Gymnasium Oldenburg. Next to his activities in sport he studied economics in Bremen with a specialisation in sustainable management.

Sailing career

Start in Mini and 505 dinghy classes (2001-2007)

In 2001 Boris Herrmann was the youngest (and the only German) participant in the

Mini Transat Mini Transat is a solo transatlantic yacht race which typically starts in France and ends in the Caribbean. The race uses small long yachts conforming to the Mini Transat 6.50 class rules which gives considering scope for development. More rec ...

race, a single-handed yacht race across the Atlantic. He came to finish eleventh which earned him his first larger appearance in the yachting press. From 1999 onwards he competed in the 505 dinghy class. In 2006 Herrmann finished second in the European Championship as well as in the German Championship in the

505 Year 505 ( DV) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Theodorus and Sabinianus (or, less frequently, year 1258 ''Ab urbe condita''). The denomination 505 for t ...

class. He also competed in the

World Championships finishing 17th in 2005, 7th in 2006 and 9th in 2007 in highly competitive 100+ boat fleets.

Class 40 and various offshore sailing projects (2008-2017)

In spring 2008 Herrmann sailed his Class 40 yacht “Beluga Racer” to a second in the Artemis Transat, the oldest transatlantic regatta for single-handed yachts. Boris Herrmann won the

Portimão Global Ocean Race The Global Ocean Race (GOR, previously known as ''Portimão Global Ocean Race'') is a yachting race for Class40 yachts which was first held in 2008–09. The second edition took place in 2011–12 and the third edition was scheduled to start in Sep ...

in 2008, a five leg regatta around the world for Class 40 boats. He and his co-skipper Felix Oehme (the ''Beluga Offshore Sailing Team'') came to win three of the five legs of the race, and left behind the team ''Desafio Cabo de Hornos''. This makes them the first German professional team on a German yacht to win a leg of an international trans-ocean race and the whole race itself. With the crew of the Italian skipper

Giovanni Soldini Giovanni may refer to: * Giovanni (name), an Italian male given name and surname * Giovanni (meteorology), a Web interface for users to analyze NASA's gridded data * ''Don Giovanni'', a 1787 opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, based on the legend of ...

he was part in setting a new record on the "Golden Route" from New York to San Francisco in 2014. With a modified Volvo Ocean 70 yacht "Maserati" they finished in 47 days and 42 minutes, about 10 days faster than the previous record. In 2015 he was part of an international crew skippered by

Francis Joyon Francis Joyon (born 28 May 1956) is a French professional sailboat racer and yachtsman. Joyon and his crew currently hold the Jules Verne Trophy for circumnavigation, on '' IDEC SPORT'' (40 days, 23 hours, 30 minutes and 30 seconds), nearly five ...

for an attempt on the

Jules Verne Trophy The Jules Verne Trophy is a prize for the fastest circumnavigation of the world by any type of yacht with no restrictions on the size of the crew provided the vessel has registered with the organization and paid an entry fee. A vessel holding t ...

. Though completing the circumnavigation they failed to break the record of

Loïck Peyron Loïck Peyron (born 1 December 1959 in Nantes) is a French yachtsman, younger brother of the yachtsman Bruno Peyron. He is particularly famous for winning many races in the 1990s on board his trimaran ''Fujicolor''. Among his notable achieveme ...

from 2012 by 2 days. He made a second attempt for the Jules Verne Trophy in 2016 again with Francis Joyon as a skipper and on the trimaran

IDEC Sport ''IDEC SPORT'' (formerly ''Groupama 3'', ''Banque Populaire VII'', ''Lending Club 2'', ''IDEC 3'') is a racing sailing trimaran designed for transoceanic record-setting. She is one of the world's fastest ocean-going sailing vessels and the cur ...

. They abandoned the race after 6 days due to bad weather making a record highly unlikely. 2016 and 2017 he participated in the

GC32 Racing Tour GC32 Racing Tour is a southern European-centered sailing boat circuit for GC32 one design foiling catamarans. It attracts both private owner-driven teams and those that are commercially-backed. History The aim of the circuit is to provide the ' ...

leading the Team Malizia alongside

IMOCA 60 circuit (since 2017)

In 2020/2021 Boris Herrmann was the first German (apart from the Franco-German Isabelle Joschke) to take part in the prestigious

2020 The year 2020 was heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to global Social impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, social and Economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, economic disruption, mass cancellations and postponements of even ...

Vendée Globe --> The Vendée Globe is a single-handed (solo) non-stop, unassisted round the world yacht race. The race was founded by Philippe Jeantot in 1989, and since 1992 has taken place every four years. It is named after the Département of Vendé ...

, which started on 8 November 2020 in front of

Les Sables-d'Olonne Les Sables-d'Olonne (; French meaning: "The Sands of Olonne"; Poitevin: ''Lés Sablles d'Oloune'') is a seaside resort and port on the Atlantic coast of western France. A subprefecture of the department of Vendée, Pays de la Loi ...

in the

Vendée Vendée () is a department in the Pays de la Loire region in Western France, on the Atlantic coast. In 2019, it had a population of 685,442.Jean Le Cam Jean Le Cam (born 27 April 1959 in Quimper, Finistère) is a French sailor. In 1981–82, he was a crewmember on Euromarché in the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race. Le Cam was crewman with Éric Tabarly and Michel Desjoyeaux, and won t ...

on 4th and

Thomas Ruyant Thomas Ruyant (born 24 May 1981) is a French sailor who was born in Dunkirk in the Nord region. He is an offshore sailor and competed in the 2020–2021 Vendée Globe IMOCA 60 onboard LinkedOut, named after a French employment charity. Ruyant ...

on 6th place. Due to a granted time compensation of 6 hours as part of the rescue of

Kevin Escoffier Kevin Escoffier is a French professional sailor born on 4 April 1980 in Saint-Malo, France and a resident of Lorient. He is an offshore sailor who has won the 2018 Volvo Ocean Race as a bowman onboard DongFeng and competed in the 2020–2021 Vend ...

in late November 2020, Boris Herrmann came out with a total regatta time of 80d 14h 59m 45s. On the 19th June 2022 he launched his new boat Malizia-Seaexplorer, with which he participated in the

14th edition 14 (fourteen) is the natural number following 13 and preceding 15. Mathematics Fourteen is the seventh composite number. Properties 14 is the third distinct semiprime, being the third of the form 2 \times q (where q is a higher prime). ...

The Ocean Race The Ocean Race is a yacht race around the world, held every three or four years since 1973. Originally named the Whitbread Round the World Race after its initiating sponsor, British brewing company Whitbread, in 2001 it became the Volvo Ocean R ...

. The ship is constructed for his participation in the 2024/2025 Vendée Globe. In 2023 Boris Herrmann competed in the

, sailing around the world in the toughest crewed race in the world over with co-skippers Will Harris, Rosalin Kuiper, Nicolas Lunven and Antoine Auriol. The crew passed Cape Horn in first place in leg 3 of the race. During the first leg he injured his foot which led to him skipping the second leg. Herrmann and his crew reached third place overall and second in the in-port-series.

Other activities

On 29 July 2019, it was announced that Boris Herrmann was to sail climate activist

Greta Thunberg Greta Tintin Eleonora Ernman Thunberg (; born 3January 2003) is a Swedish climate activist, climate and political activist initially known for challenging world leaders to take immediate action to climate change mitigation, mitigate the effec ...

from

Plymouth Plymouth ( ) is a port city status in the United Kingdom, city and unitary authority in Devon, South West England. It is located on Devon's south coast between the rivers River Plym, Plym and River Tamar, Tamar, about southwest of Exeter and ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

in mid-late August 2019 on his emission-free racing yacht ''

Malizia II Gitana 16, her name when launched, is an IMOCA 60 monohull sailing yacht, designed by VPLP design, VPLP and Guillaume Verdier and constructed by Multiplast in France. She was later known as Malizia II. The yacht's hull has a tumblehome shape and ...

''. They departed on 14 August 2019 and arrived on 28 August the same year.

Sailing results

Bibliography

* ''Nonstop: Süchtig nach Segeln / Driven by the Sea'', 2021, * ''Allein zwischen Himmel und Meer'', 2021 together with Andreas Wolfers * ''Abenteuer Ocean Race'', 2023, together with Andreas Wolfers * ''My Ocean Challenge – Kurs auf Klimaschutz'', 2023, children's book, together with Birte Lorenzen-Herrmann

References

Sources

Article at Seglermagazin.de Artemis Transat 2008: Boris Herrmann sensationell Zweiter 30. Mai 2008

* ttp://www.spiegel.de/sport/sonst/0,1518,590736,00.html Article at Spiegel Online Deutsche Segler mit historischem Erfolg 16. November 2008
Article at Spiegel Online Herrmann und Oehme gewinnen Portimão Global Race 21. Juni 2009

Official Website: The Transat - The North Atlantic Alone
(English/French)

External links

*
Boris Herrmann
at

IMOCA IMOCA or iMOCA may refer to: * Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art * International Monohull Open Classes Association, International Monohull Open Class Association * IMOCA 50, a former 50ft racing yacht class * IMOCA 60, an active 60ft racing y ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Herrmann, Boris 1981 births Living people German male sailors (sport) Greta Thunberg IMOCA 60 class sailors German Vendee Globe sailors 2020 Vendee Globe sailors 2024 Vendee Globe sailors Vendée Globe finishers Single-handed circumnavigating sailors Sportspeople from Oldenburg Sailors (sport) from Lower Saxony 21st-century German sportsmen