It has now been a week since the IMOCA Holcim-PRB has been docked at the Moonbeam Marina in New York. Since its arrival last Thursday, the technical team of the Holcim-PRB team has been hard at work carrying out the necessary repairs ahead of the return transatlantic race – New York-Vendée – set for May 29.

While Nicolas Lunven took advantage of this stopover in New York to rest for a few days after the grueling Transat CIC, he confidently entrusted his IMOCA to his technical team. During these 20 days of the stopover, the team will primarily focus on repairing the bowsprit of the Holcim-PRB monohull. Indeed, on May 1, after five days of racing, Nicolas Lunven notified his shore team of the damage to this part of the boat located at the front of the bow, which serves to secure the large headsails. This damage required his team to organize the retrieval of materials from France and the United States: "Following the damage to the bowsprit, the most important thing was to set everything up in advance to be able to repair it here in New York. Once on site, the reconstruction occurs in several phases. First, there’s a ‘demolition’ phase: that means finishing removing everything that is broken to keep only the healthy material. Then, we move on to the lamination phase. Here, we had to perform six lamination phases, which represents six days of work. Between each phase, we must wait about twelve hours for the resin to cure. It’s mainly for this reason that it’s a repair that takes time. The timing is tight, with the goal being to have a boat ready to sail for the Liberty Race (a demonstration race in front of the Statue of Liberty), which will take place on May 24,” explains Baptiste Chardon, technical director of Team Holcim-PRB.

The team – composed of about ten experts in specific fields – is therefore hard at work repairing this part, as well as conducting all the necessary checks to ensure Nicolas Lunven departs from New York in the best conditions: “Beyond the repair of the bowsprit, which is really the main focus of this work being done in New York, we also needed to carry out a complete inspection of the IMOCA. This transatlantic crossing has been very tough on the boats, and many have suffered from structural problems. Therefore, we performed various checks: structure, rigging, watertightness, electronics, etc.”

This stopover in New York is a key moment for the Holcim-PRB team and Nicolas Lunven in preparing the IMOCA. Each race exposes the boat to extreme conditions, and every return to the dock is an opportunity to learn and improve the IMOCA that Nicolas will take on the Vendée Globe next November. For the skipper, the goal is to have a boat operating at 100% of its potential for the upcoming challenges, with special attention given to the details observed during the Transat CIC: “We’re not just repairing what was broken; we’re really in a proactive mindset. With the feedback Nico provided us, we’re looking at how we can improve or modify certain details. The idea is to implement these changes before departure so that they can be validated during the return race: New York – Vendée,” Baptiste explains.

While Nicolas Lunven has a score to settle from this return transatlantic crossing, his technical team is focused on the major event of the season, coming up in November: “The Vendée Globe is coming up very quickly. After the return transatlantic race, the boat will go into summer maintenance until mid-August, and we will then have only two months to sail and make the final adjustments before transporting the boat to Les Sables d’Olonne next fall.”