The pathway and the steps

It's a question we get asked a lot - how can I become a sailor in The Ocean Race?

There isn't a simple answer, but when we put this query to some of the IMOCA sailors, a few themes kept coming to the fore. 

"Just sail as much as you can on different boats in different races to gain as much experience as you can," was the first thing Rosalin Kuiper told us. 

She should know, after first joining the VO65 Team AkzoNobel in The Ocean Race Europe, she moved on to become a fan favourite and important member of Team Malizia for the last edition of The Ocean Race. 

Now Rosalin is an IMOCA skipper with Team Holcim PRB for the 2025 edition of The Ocean Race Europe. 

"I think The Ocean Race is the Mount Everest of fully-crewed offshore sailing and so it is the ulitmate goal and ultimate challenge. It is addictive. I hope I can do many more!"

"If you are young and you aspire to do this, just do as much sailing as you can do," is the advice from Yoann Richomme, the skipper of Paprec Arkéa. "Try every type of racing you can do, in any type of boat. You have to go through all the classes - Mini, Figaro, RORC, Fastnet, to work yourself up to the end goal."

Richomme is a living example of someone who worked his way up. He is a qualified naval architect and has wins in the Solitaire du Figaro in 2016 and 2019 and the Route du Rhum in the Class 40 in 2018 and 2022. In the IMOCA class, he won the Retour à la Base 2023 and The Transat in 2024, as well as The Ocean Race Europe in the VO65 class in 2021.

When he looks for sailors to fill out his crew, Richomme says they need to be, "hard working, good all around the boat, tireless."

These qualites of etermination and persistence also came up time and again. 

"Just do it. Believe in yourself and don’t listen to people who tell you to only try it if you are sure you can win," said Hublot's Alan Roura. "I think you just have to do it and follow your dream."

"Try. Just try," agreed Éric Bellion the skipper of Stand As One. "Because it can look like it is impossible on one day but maybe on the next day it is possible.

"If I did it, you can do it," he says, laughing.

A good sense of humour and the ability to get along are important as well. 

"Keep smiling. It’s not easy wehen you want to become a profrssional. It can be difficult," cautions Kuiper. "But try to find the nice moments and really enjoy them. If you are happy with what you are doing then you are the biggest winner."

"The human part is the most important," says Roura. "We spend weeks and weeks together so it’s important that everybody is able to get along. The human characteristic is most important."

"Every sailor is different. You need to be yourself and do your sailing with passion and if you do that, your moment will arrive," shared Ben Dutreux, the skipper of GUYOT Environnement, who won over fans with his passion and commitment in the last edition of The Ocean Race.

He says he'd love to put in place the lessons learned from his first attempt at The Ocean Race into another campaign.

"The challenge of The Ocean Race is very, very appealing," he concluded.