The German skipper Boris Herrmann, who finished in fifth place in the Vendée Globe on Seaexplorer-Yacht Club de Monaco, is the 2018-21 IMOCA Globe Series champion.
The championship is calculated by accumulating the scores of skippers and their teams in the major IMOCA Class races, among them the Vendée Globe, the Route du Rhum, the Transat Jacques Vabre, the Bermudes 1000 and the Vendée Arctique.
Boris, aged 39, entered all of those races and completed every one, although his Vendée Globe almost came to an abrupt end just 90 miles from the finish when he hit a Spanish fishing boat.
The skipper came out at the head of the championship with Vendée Globe winner Yannick Bestaven (Maitre CoQ IV) second and Vendée Globe runner-up and line honours winner Charlie Dalin (APIVIA) third.
Boris said: “We finished all the races and we never abandoned a race, which is great. There is a little bit of luck involved, of course. I am delighted but we have to be honest about it. I think Yannick’s project started later than ours and not everyone has the financial means or the planning possibilities to come to all the races.”
The winning skipper is already planning to acquire or build a new boat for the next Vendée Globe and is looking forward to another full programme of IMOCA racing in the next few years: “Certainly we stay in the IMOCA Class, for sure. We will try to get the best boat we can get our hands on or build and, hopefully, we can race this year with the new owner of our current boat.”
The remaining sailors in the top 10 are Thomas Ruyant in fourth place, Jérémie Beyou fifth, Damien Seguin sixth, Louis Burton seventh, Giancarlo Pedote eighth, Clarisse Crémer ninth and Jean Le Cam in tenth.
A new IMOCA Globe Series 2021-25 Championship begins this season, to end after the next Vendée Globe 2024-25.
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