Round bow, flat hull. Here is Alberto Bona’s IBSA super Class40!

Latest generation Class40, scow bow, five months in production. The IBSA hull with which Alberto Bona will take part in the Route du Rhum in November was launched yesterday in Brittany, in La Trinité-Sur-Mer, departing next Nov. 6. The 3,542-mile solo trans-oceanic from Saint-Malo, Brittany to Pointe-à-Pitre in Guadeloupe that every sailor worth his salt must face once in a lifetime.

Alberto Bona and IBSA towards the Route du Rhum

Bona, bearer of Circolo Vela Bellano, will sail solo, on the Class40 IBSA. But he is not alone. Supporting him, first in the design and construction of the boat and then in the physical and mental preparation, was a top-notch team. A team that will also follow him in the later stages of the three-year Sailing into the future project. Together that the ocean sailor initiated with Swiss pharmaceutical company IBSA.

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At Route du Rhum Bona will also meet two Italian friends/rivals. Ambrogio Beccaria and Andrea Fornaro.

The “guru” Manuard

Designed by Sam Manuard, one of the great French naval architects when it comes to ocean classes, the Class40 IBSA was built by the JPS Production shipyard. It is a Mach 5 model, the latest evolution of Manuard’s Class40s, and will be presented at the start of the Route du Ruhm as one of the most innovative and recent boats. Certainly attracting attention will be the rounded bow, made with the aim of increasing performance in carrying gaits, but the hull also promises high performance thanks to the design of the water lines and appendages, designed to make the hull a fast all rounder even upwind.

A distinctive element is also the design of the cockpit, which is large and protected-a choice that will allow the sailor to face navigation in positions that are as comfortable and safe as possible. “This boat perfectly reflects our approach to the program – summarizes Alberto Bona – is the result of the search for detail, for improvement in every single aspect: we were looking for a fast hull, clearly at the limits of the box rule, reliable in all weather conditions, and innovative enough to be able to affect and make a difference“.

A solid project

The project Sailing into the Future. Together started from scratch last January with a partnership-that between IBSA and Alberto Bona-born on common grounds and values, with the aim of using sailing as a vehicle for corporate communication, toward the market and the boating world. “Ingenuity, courage, innovation, responsibility are elements that unite us,” explains Alberto Bona – which is why we are facing this challenge together, which is clearly sporting, but which actually also metaphorically represents the company’s history, philosophy and vision that is always forward-looking and part of a path that brings IBSA ever closer to the theme of environmental and social sustainability, inclusion and integration. In this type of challengee the lone navigator exists as a function of his team. With IBSA, we first of all built a team.“.

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Dream team

As for the team, it starts with Sidney Gavignet as coach: the highly experienced French sailor has set bases and goals with an ironclad rule: work to always be prepared, anticipate all aspects of the challenge, on land and at sea. “Sidney has put us in a position to divide this great challenge into many small steps. A long roadmap of milestones to be reached, training and testing ahead of the start, as building a challenge like the Route de Rhum from scratch in seven months is extremely demanding“. For the physical preparation part, Bona relied on. Andrea Madaffari: has been working with him for months on endurance and strength, on managing the energy peaks needed in racing “In sailing you need breath and you need pulling: you pull sheets and halyards, you need stamina and peak strength – explains Bona – We are working on this, as well as the aerobic part“.

“The choice of Sam Manuard as designer was practically a naturalone,” Bona recalls, and rests on a solid acquaintance in the Mini class days, a shared design vision, and the innovations Bona was seeking for his Class40 IBSA. On the sail front, Bona opted instead for Remi Aubrum‘s All Purpose, to whom he entrusted the choice of innovative materials compatible with the strict Class40 box rule. The latest operational entry is that of Boat Captain, Breton expert Pierre-Edouard Regaud.

“In these months we are all working with the same philosophy, that of goals to be achieved day by day. We are working on fatigue management, on finding the best solutions in all aspects of the project. It was a huge team effort between us and IBSA., which led us to the technical launch yesterday” -Bona says.

The program of Alberto Bona and IBSA

In the afternoon, at 5 p.m., the Class40 IBSA traveled by truck the short distance between the shipyard and the marina that will host it, which is located in front of “Casa IBSA,” the operations headquarters. Alberto Bona now has a month to fine-tune the boat and qualify by sailing by the end of August for 1,000 miles. On September 9, a sea baptism will take place in La Trinité-sur-Mer., the ceremony that will officially bring Class40 into the IBSA world. In mid-September, Alberto Bona will participate in the Malouine Lamotte regatta; then, he will move his base of operations to Saint-Malo, from where the first regatta of the three-year program will start.

Sustainability and inclusion

“We will speak to sailing enthusiasts and the entire IBSA world,” explained Bona, who also emphasizes that in common with IBSA is a project of sustainability, understood in the round: “Sailors are experts in the circular economy, living for long periods of time in the ocean, replacing fossil fuels with solar and wind power, recycling everything they can, and living in true harmony with the sea that they help to protect: this is a very important message that we with IBSA want to promote and share using the solo ocean challenge as a great metaphor for what can and should be done for the environment“.

As part of its sailing-related program, IBSA is also committed to inclusivity: in fact, the inclusive sailing project involving the Velabili Association under the Circolo Velico Lago di Lugano (Switzerland), the Société des Régates d’Antibes (France) and the Yacht Club Punta Ala (Italy) has also been activated. The project aims to support inclusive sailing by promoting initiatives that involve people with disabilities in experiences in contact with the sea and the world of sailing, and consists of supporting a team of disabled sailors in participating in the 2023 Special Olympics World Games and purchasing Hansa 303 boats to benefit the Punta Ala and Antibes clubs.

Alberto Bona’s Route du Rhum approach can be followed at https://www.ibsasailing.com/

Who is Alberto Bona

Born in Turin in 1986, Alberto Bona while still an infant cruised across the Mediterranean on the family Camper & Nicholson. At the age of eight, he began dinghy training. In 2006 he built himself a 2.5-meter drift in his backyard and crossed the Tyrrhenian Sea alone, from Liguria to Corsica. Then one-design racing “between the buoys” and the first Atlantic crossing at the ARC.

At 27, he took part in his first Mini Transat (solo transatlantic on 6.50-meter boats), finishing fifth, one of Italy’s best results. In 2017 he switched to Class40s thanks to his friend Giovanni Soldini (who lent him his former boat), and he is together with the Milanese sailor on the 70-foot trimaran Maserati. He later cut his teeth aboard the Figaro Beneteau 3, the first production foil monohull. Now Bona is ready for IBSA’s Class40 where he is expected to attend the Route du Rhum in November, the first leg of the three-year project “Sailing into Future. Together” with IBSA. As soon as he can, he loves to fly on the small Waszp foil dinghies. He is a bearer of Circolo Vela Bellano (not coincidentally, the club’s sports director, Luca Bertacchi, is also the team leader of the Class 40 IBSA project).

The company that believes in sailing

For this challenge, Alberto Bona could find no better partner than IBSA (Institut Biochimique SA), a Swiss multinational pharmaceutical company founded in 1945 in Lugano. IBSA is now present with its products in more than 90 countries on 5 continents, has consolidated sales of 800 million francs and employs more than 2,000 people. The team leader of the IBSA project Sailing into the future. Together is Giorgio Pisani Vice President of Southern Europe, a great sailing enthusiast. “This project is not only an ocean crossing but also an opportunity to tell IBSA’s values. Sailing is a sport but also a life experience and courage, and it also brings us as a company closer to the theme of social sustainability by supporting inclusive sailing initiatives“, Pisani reveals.