Team Adventure

We’re well aware that most legendary offshore racing yachts rarely enjoy a triumphant retirement. Gradually supplanted by faster, lighter models, they become obsolete and neglected. They end up moored at a dock, at the far end of a harbor, or abandoned in a boatyard. Yet these are parts of our maritime heritage, sinking into oblivion - or even outright destruction. From an environmental standpoint, we are clearly facing an enormous waste.

But none of this is inevitable: Innovation Explorer, a 120-foot (36.8-meter) catamaran launched by Multiplast in 2000 and winner of the Jules Verne Trophy in 2005, underwent a complete transformation in 2015. Despite gaining an extra 10 tons with the addition of a central nacelle, Vitalia 2, as she is now known, is considered to be the world’s fastest cruising multihull to date…

As part of the many sustainable initiatives implemented by the marine industry, extending the life of multihulls built with high-tech composite materials obviously makes sense. In addition to preserving our maritime heritage, refitting is a credible demonstration of the circular economy.

Barely a Year Underway…

Today, it’s Team Adventure’s turn to return to the forefront. This catamaran is none other than one of the two sisterships of Innovation Explorer (the third is Club Med, which we’ll come back to later). But until now, it has had a somewhat less fortunate fate than its siblings. It bears the same signature, that of the Gilles Ollier Design Team, and was also built by Multiplast in 2000.

In Barcelona, on December 31 of that same year, the three giant catamarans set sail in The Race, the famous non-stop round-the-world race conceived by the renowned French skipper Loïc Peyron… and finished on the podium (1st Club Med; 2nd Innovation Explorer; 3rd Team Adventure), though not without have taken on some particularly harsh conditions, enduring damage and even injuries. Each catamaran then continued to rack up records, but the adventure ended a little sooner than expected for Team Adventure. In August 2001, while attempting to break the Transatlantic record, the crew struck an unidentified floating object in thick fog shortly after leaving New York. The impact wrecked the port bow - the hull was severely damaged, but skipper Cam Lewis and his first mate, Laurent Bourgnon, managed to just save the catamaran. Team Adventure was lifted ashore in Quonset, Rhode Island, but several restoration projects never came to fruition due to a lack of funding.

From Ocean Racer to Multiyacht: An Ambitious Project

Today, Team Adventure is undergoing work at Fast Forward Composites in Bristol, RI, some 9 miles (15 km) as the crow flies from the yard where it been sat for 25 years… the project is largely led by former team members - skipper Cam Lewis is returning to the helm, and Larry Rosenfeld, the catamaran’s owner, was the co-founder of Team Adventure and the navigator during The Race. The team’s goal is to create a multihull combining ...