Vendee Globe Winner Francois Gabart will race F18 season

Image © Vincent Curutchet / DPPI ||  Vendee Globe Winner joins the F18. This is excellent news for the F18 Class. Left: Francois was honored today by French president.See Vendee Globe website
Below release sent by Udin.
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Team Sail Innovation signs with Francois Gabart.
Sail Innovation is proud to announce the venue of the recent Vendée Globe winner in his team. Francois wanted to come back to his first love, beach cat. Before his successful career in off shore sailing, Francois did several years of Tornado catamaran, training together with his friend Olivier Backes. Francois will sail this season with Olivier’s crew, Matthieu Vandame, they will notably participate to the Eurocat and the F18 world championship this summer in Italy.

Francois Gabart: I am very lucky to sail with Matthieu who won the last F18 World championship on the Phantom, we know each other very well, we used to be part of the youth Tornado French team. Matthieu’s target is to keep his title, I will do my best to be up to it even if it is a very tuff challenge. The Eurocat will be a good test to know how much work we still have to compete against the best crews.

Alex Udin (founder of Sail Innovation): I am glad to have Francois sailing on the Phantom, I am impatient to start working together on the boat and the sails. François experience and his engineer background will be for sure very helpful for the team, we will work hard to get him competitive for the world’s.