Loïs Berrehar, making his own luck

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“By far the biggest challenge I’ll ever have taken on.” Loïs Berrehar (Banque Populaire 14) doesn’t play down what lies ahead. In 2028, he will line up for his first Vendée Globe aboard a brand-new IMOCA, due to launch in spring 2027.

It all started in the middle of the 2024-2025 Vendée Globe. While the fleet was racing around the world, he joined the Banque Populaire team and saw the first drawings of his future boat. “I immediately pictured myself on board, racing the Vendée Globe four years later.”

He isn’t building this boat alone. Team Malizia (Boris Herrmann), TR Racing (Thomas Ruyant) and Team Banque Populaire designed and built their IMOCAs together, a first for the class. For Loïs Berrehar, it all comes down to one thing: “You have to set off with the right weapon.”

That weapon won’t push to extremes. The team made “relatively conservative” choices to avoid a boat that is too complex or too fragile. “We may not be the fastest in certain conditions, but we want to avoid any real weak points,” he explains.

His boat isn’t in the water yet? He’s already getting to know it… on its sister ship. Malizia 4, Boris Herrmann’s IMOCA, came out of the same hull mould, and Loïs was part of the crew that sailed it across the Atlantic this summer. “I’m not just waiting for my boat: I can already test it and get a feel for it in real conditions.”

His defining moment

He no longer remembers the exact date, but he remembers the feeling. Loïs was seven or eight the first time he found himself alone in his Optimist, the small dinghy children learn to sail in. Until then, he had always sailed with his parents. That day, the sail and every decision were his.

It was an escape in the truest sense: leaving dry land behind and discovering that, even as a child, you can choose your own course. He never looked back: “From that moment on, I never stopped sailing.”

From an Optimist barely two metres long to an 18-metre IMOCA, the line runs unbroken. In 2028, he will set off alone once more, this time to sail around the world.

What shaped him: the Atlantic as a classroom

At ten, he took his schoolbooks to sea. Loïs crossed the Atlantic with his family and did his lessons on board, before starting secondary school. He came home with one certainty: “I didn’t want to do anything else but sail and spend time on the water.”

Sailing was already part of his life in Quiberon Bay. His father, Yvon Berrehar, is a professional sailor. From 2015, he was technical director of Fabrice Amedeo’s IMOCA campaign, notably for the 2016-2017 Vendée Globe.

As Loïs puts it, all of this “naturally guided [his] choices”: the Vendée Globe and the Route du Rhum have been his dream for as long as he can remember.

His defining trait: a competitor’s patience

Patient? Loïs wouldn’t necessarily describe himself that way. His choices say it for him.

He got his first taste of IMOCA racing fairly young, double-handed, with the Vendée Globe “in the back of [his] mind”. Yet he chose to focus on the Figaro: seven Solitaires, taking the time “to work, to improve and to chase performance without skipping any steps”.

There is nothing passive about this patience. Results in the Figaro were, he says, “essential to move up to the next level”. He went after them one by one, learning to keep a cool head along the way.

His trademark: gratitude as a compass

One word comes up more than any other when he talks: luck. He describes each step of his career as an opportunity he was given.

This isn’t false modesty. A Vendée Globe campaign brings its share of breakages, wrong calls and gruelling moments. To keep from losing heart, Loïs Berrehar holds on to one simple idea: “We must never forget how incredibly lucky we are to live these adventures.”

That gratitude also gives meaning to the sacrifices: “That’s why we’re willing to push ourselves to the limit and make sacrifices to see these projects through.”

His talent: fighting at the front

Loïs learned his trade in the Figaro, the stepping stone to the Vendée Globe. In these identical 10-metre boats, everyone races on equal terms, so it’s the sailor who makes the difference. Loïs Berrehar finished 2nd in the 2024 Solitaire with two stage wins, and won the 2023 Transat Paprec double-handed with Charlotte Yven.

Alongside the Figaro, he has been building his IMOCA experience since 2021, double-handed and fully crewed. For the 2024-2025 Vendée Globe, he was Charlie Dalin’s replacement skipper on MACIF Santé Prévoyance, ready to take the start if needed.

Now he has to take that talent around the world. Loïs will be a closely watched competitor and a strong contender to race at the front in 2028.