Follow Adrien, our boat captain, on a guided tour of the boatyard

For the IMOCA Fortinet – Best Western, the start of the new year always means a refit. Since last December, she has been kept warm in her shed in Lorient.

The watchword for this winter refit is reliability. With two transatlantic races and a circumnavigation, the 2024 season is going to be intense and testing for the boat. So the entire technical team is busy dismantling everything, assessing and maintaining all the onboard equipment.

Moreover, this is our last opportunity to make modifications before the Vendée Globe. After three seasons of sailing this boat, I know what I want to do to adapt it and have it fit perfectly. In particular, we’re working on the watch seat and the chart table, to optimize sailing comfort. We’ll then have two transatlantic races to validate these modifications.

This week, we’ve completed the first phase of the refit and all the non-destructive testing on the boat. The good news is that the experts didn’t detect any problems, so we’ve got a boat that is healthy to sail around the world. Next, we’ll be tackling the modification phase before fully reassembling the boat for a launch scheduled for early April.