As the first Swiss German to finish the Vendée Globe in the 2024–2025 edition (29th), Oliver Heer has set out on a second campaign with greater ambitions and a more competitive boat, Justine Mettraux’s former Teamwork-Team Snef (a 2018 VPLP design). Last week, he presented his Embrace The Challenge project and announced his participation in The Ocean Race, giving Sailorz the opportunity to speak with him.
You sailed the last Vendée Globe, can you tell us how you made the decision to launch a second campaign for 2028?
I think you learn so much in the first campaign, that it would be a bit of a wasted effort not to continue. So before I even crossed the finish line, we as a team decided that we would like to do it again. At that time, we even had first conversations with potential sponsors; for instance, the owner and CEO of Burgerstein Vitamine, my last title sponsor, was on the boat after the finish line in Les Sables-d’Olonne and already I was like, ‘Look, Tanya, we would really like to do it again.’ And she said, ‘Well, if you want to do it again, we should be part of this again.’ So I never, after the race, had to consider whether I wanted to do it again, it was clear from the finish line!
And what was the plan?
When we started our first campaign, we said the ideal scenario was to do three Vendée Globe campaigns, at least. One, very low budget, adventure campaign, then a second campaign with a good secondhand boat, and then a third one, hopefully with our own new build. You need to have these kinds of goals because, in the end, a campaign is also a commercial entity. When you talk to sponsors, you have to show them that you’re thinking in the long term. So we knew immediately that if we wanted do a second campaign, we’ll have to do it better. I don’t think I would have done a second campaign on a daggerboard boat. If you don’t progress, then it becomes a little bit monotonous and even a little bit boring. Now the budget is three or four times as high (the previous one was 1.5 million euros for three years). That’s why in 2025, I didn’t do any sailing, I was just focusing on finding the budget. Today we have enough funding for this year, for part of next year, but we still need to find more. There are performance upgrades on the boat that I think are necessary before the Vendée Globe, a second mast or a second pair of foils. For instance, we don’t have the budget for that yet. But we have a boat, we can show the value to potential partners, and we have a story to tell.
“The perfect boat for us”
How did you choose this boat especially?
First, it was a budget consideration. The second reason was that it was a very well-proven and reliable boat because Justine and Jérémie Beyou are both sailors who sail at 100% all the time. The third reason was that we wanted to buy a boat off a team that continues to exist. There’s so much value in having a good collaboration with such a team. So when you take all these factors into consideration, it was the perfect boat for us.
You announced last week your participation in The Ocean Race. Can you explain this decision?
For me, it was always a dream to do The Ocean Race. I always followed the Vendée Globe, but the Whitbread and then the Volvo were always much bigger because I did a lot of crew sailing in my life. But if you’re realistic, The Ocean Race comes with a lot of costs. Even if you have an established Vendée Globe campaign, you’re talking well into seven-digit numbers to just fund The Ocean Race within this campaign. So we had ongoing conversations with some partners and a few weeks ago, we had some very positive developments. We spoke to them, being very honest about the risks of an Ocean Race – if something bad happens, if we break a foil in Auckland, then it becomes quite expensive – but in the end, they all said, ‘Look, Ollie, I think you should do it, it’s such an added value to a campaign’.
What is the extra cost to take part in The Ocean Race?
I would say between 1 and 2 million on top of a normal campaign.
The schedule is becoming very busy, will you do The Ocean Race Atlantic, the Route du Rhum and The Ocean Race World?
We have entered the Route du Rhum, but we haven’t made a decision yet. I’m very aware that it’s a very busy schedule, not just for me but also for the team around me. It can very easily burn through the team, and that’s not what I want to do in the first year. So we will discuss it with our management team, and then we make a democratic decision about whether it’s achievable.
“It would be great to be in the top 15
of the next Vendée Globe”
Can you tell me about the choice of your crew for The Ocean Race Atlantic and then for The Ocean Race World?
I wanted to put a team with very complementary skill sets, but not the same expertise twice. Lincoln Dews is my co-skipper, he’s been with us for 4 months, he’s also our performance analyst. He used to work for L’Occitane, he’s a very smart guy when it comes to electronics and data. We then have Liz Wardley, who is very technical, so if something breaks on the boat, she can fix it. She’s also very tough, she never complains, she just keeps going. And then Marie Riou, who’s done a lot of sailing on the boat with Justine last year, but also with her Olympic experience, she’s the person who can get this last 5% or 3% out of the boat. I think the four of us together, we will complement each other quite nicely. For The Ocean Race World we will have a squad of probably seven sailors. For the Southern Ocean legs, I want to have people on the boat who have been down in the Southern Ocean before. Then for other legs in the Mediterranean, for instance, or from Brazil to Florida, you might need someone who is very good at trimming, making smart strategic choices, which might be, you know, might be a Figaro or an Olympic sailor.
There are only three boats registered for The Ocean Race so far, are you concerned about that?
I’d be lying if I said that I’m not concerned. Time is flying and very soon people have to make a decision. I’m confident and optimistic that there will be one or two more boats coming in, and some teams are not too far away from entering. I think it needs it, because a race with only three boats is not a real race.
Can you tell me about your goals for The Ocean Race, then for the Vendée Globe?
We have to be very realistic. I’m the youngest skipper and least experienced skipper, we have the oldest boat at the moment, the only one that’s not a new build. I think we have to play our strengths in a way that we will need to be able to push the boat, and not break it. And if other boats have technical issues, or they have to even temporarily slow down to a factory repair or something, this could be our moment to hopefully deliver a good performance. But then at the end of the day, it’s not just the sporting side, it’s also the commercial side of The Ocean Race. There’s also no better platform to prepare for the Vendée Globe than this race. And then for the Vendée Globe, it’s a bit early to talk about expectations, 11 new boats are coming out, we don’t know how they will be 3% or 10% faster. I would wish to just do a solid result. I don’t know if I’m too arrogant to say it would be great to be in the top 15.
Photo : PKC Media
