The opportunity

Ocean racing
is built here

The world's great races already carry a brand's name and cost millions. But before racing any of them, everyone comes through the same class — and there a brand can still come in for the price of one quarter of media spend.

The class

Everyone comes
through here

The Mini 6.50 is one of the entry points to ocean racing. A class with strongly purist values: boats built for offshore, affordable next to other categories, and a place where you learn a great deal about the discipline.

That's why the ones who later race the big ones come through here. Ellen MacArthur, Michel Desjoyeaux, Charlie Dalin, Thomas Ruyant, Ian Lipinski, Yannick Bestaven. They all started here.

No brand currently holds the lead position on this project, and sector exclusivity is open in every category outside the technical ones.

Mati Chemes beneath the painted hull of Barra, lifted in the travelift
Why this and not more media spend

Platforms give
you scale.
Not a brand.

Building a brand takes three things: emotion, consistency and frequency. All three need real time and a territory of your own, and neither of those is bought in an inventory auction.

This does not compete with your media spend: it works at the part of the funnel media spend cannot reach. It is not a conversion channel and it is not presented as one.

What media spend does

Distributes what you already built

Meta, TikTok and YouTube are excellent at lowering cost per impression. They are also incapable of generating authenticity: any competitor can buy the same inventory, with the same targeting, on the same day. What you buy there is reach, and reach switches off the day you stop paying.

What this does

Builds something you then distribute

Three years of a real story, with a protagonist, moving forward every week from the workshop to the start line of a solo transatlantic. That gives you owned material at a steady cadence, experience off the screen, and an association no competitor can buy in parallel, because sector exclusivity is part of the deal.

What brand gets built here

Three values
you cannot manufacture

A brand can say it is demanding. Proving it is harder. This is a context where all three values prove themselves, because the sport allows no shortcut.

Endurance

Four thousand miles alone, on a six-and-a-half-metre boat, without assistance and without a weather forecast sent from shore. There is no category in sailing where the mismatch between the person and the ocean is so plain.

Excellence

The prototype division is the technical laboratory of ocean racing. The scow bow that now rules Class40 and IMOCA was born here and won here. What works on 6.50 metres ends up, years later, on boats twenty times more expensive.

Merit

Places are not bought: they are earned in official racing miles with the same boat. There are more candidates than places and no budget changes that. It is the most meritocratic place in ocean racing, and the one the rest of the sport respects.

Colour, symbol and typeface go onto the hull, the sail and the technical clothing, and stay in the same place for three seasons. Brand building, recall and association. Not conversion: that is what your media spend is for, and this does not try to replace it.

Launch at the A Coruña yard
Who it reaches

The people who set
the trend, first

The Mini's direct audience is small and disproportionately influential: racers, yards, naval architects, Vendée Globe teams and the specialist press.

They are the audience that decides what is respectable in ocean racing. Everything else follows them. A brand that comes in here is not buying audience: it is buying permission to be in the conversation.

1.000
Media hits · 2023 edition
213M
Cumulative potential audience
2,3M €
Advertising value equivalent
57%
Of those hits, audiovisual

Where it appears

  • Television and radio: 329 and 237 appearances respectively in 2023. France 2, France 3, M6 and BFM TV have covered earlier editions.
  • Press: AFP, L'Équipe, Le Figaro, Libération; and the specialist titles, Voiles et Voiliers, Course au Large, Tip & Shaft.
  • Live tracking: the organisation publishes cartography and daily reports throughout the crossing. Material the brand can reuse on its own channels while the race happens.

Where the value is

The value is in two things. The change of course, which from 2027 brings Spain and Brazil onto the official route and opens markets where the race had not existed for eighteen years. And the project’s own communication, which is controlled and aimed at the audience the brand cares about.

This does not sell raw reach. It sells positioning, image and access.

How it is activated

Off
the screen

The competitive advantage here is that it happens in the physical world. Four blocks that combine and scale according to the agreement.

Bloque A

Image and name

Graphic presence on the agreed areas of the boat and on the technical clothing, with sector exclusivity. At the lead level, naming rights: the boat and the project carry the brand name throughout the campaign and in the official race reports.

Bloque B

Content, both ways

I produce. I document the project continuously with my own kit and there is already publishable material: the gallery on this site is mine. The commitment is weekly content — workshop, sailing, racing — licensed for your channels.

The brand produces. Full access to bring its photographer or its team whenever it wants — workshop, refit, training, racing, start and finish — with its own art direction and image rights licensed.

Fujifilm X-T5 Insta360 iPhone Weekly cadence
Bloque C

Experiences and hospitality

What cannot be bought on a platform. For clients or for internal teams:

  • Days in A Coruña: workshop, pontoon and a sail on a marina boat I have access to.
  • The official start in La Rochelle, with access to the pontoon area.
  • The finish in Salvador de Bahía, autumn 2029.
  • Talks on technical preparation, decision-making under uncertainty and running a long project on limited resources.
Bloque D

Co-creation, hands on

The format no other sports property this size can offer: making something together. A limited series carrying the sail number. A piece made from the sail retired after the crossing. An object for on board, developed to order and tested over 4,050 real miles.

I am an industrial designer and a rigger: I can sit at the product table, not just the marketing one. And the class around me is, literally, a laboratory of materials and design.

Pontoons of the Mini Transat village © Vincent Olivaud · La Boulangère Mini Transat
How to come in

Come in wherever
you like

You do not have to decide the three years at once. You can try one race, see how it goes, and scale up later.

Step 1 · the trial

One race

A single race from the qualifying calendar — for instance Plastimo Lorient Mini, in April. Your name on the boat for that event, owned content from the weekend licensed for your channels, and a report with photographic material at the end.

€2,000 – 5,000 · per race
Step 2 · the season

A full year

March to September: six to ten races between Brittany, the Mediterranean and the Azores, plus the workshop work in between. Continuous presence and content on a weekly cadence.

€20,000 – 40,000 · per year
Step 3 · the cycle

All three seasons

Through to the 2029 start and the full crossing: 4,050 miles from La Rochelle to Salvador de Bahía. This is where boat naming and total sector exclusivity live.

€60,000 – 150,000 · full cycle

What you put into one race is credited against the first year if the partnership continues. The idea is that trying should not cost more than starting outright.

Partnership levels

The numbers

Five ways in, from a single race to naming the boat.

Each level activates a combination of the four activation blocks — image, content, experiences and co-creation — and says which. The ranges are indicative and adjust to the real fit with each brand.

The commercial proposal

The five partnership levels with their ranges, available places and detailed benefits. No forms: one click and it opens.

From one race to the full cycle
Race partner
€2,000 – 5,000 · per race
The way to try it · no further commitment
Includes A ImageB Content
  • The brand name on the boat during that race and in the event communication.
  • Owned content from the weekend — start, sailing, finish and pontoon — licensed for their channels.
  • A report at the end, with photographic and video material.
  • What is put in is credited against the first year if the partnership continues.
Season partner
€20,000 – 40,000 · per year
Up to four brands
Includes A ImageB Content
  • Graphic presence on a secondary area of hull or deck for the whole season.
  • Dedicated content on the project channels, on a weekly cadence.
  • Invitation to the season milestones.
  • Annual report with photographic material licensed.
Campaign partner
€60,000 – 100,000 · full cycle
Maximum three brands · sector exclusivity
Includes A ImageB ContentC Experiences
  • Graphic presence on a defined area of the hull and on jib or gennaker.
  • Sector exclusivity.
  • Access for content production at the agreed milestones.
  • Weekly content licensed for their channels.
  • Experiences in A Coruña and at one international milestone of their choice.
  • A talk for teams or clients.
Lead partner · Naming
€100,000 – 150,000 · full cycle
One brand only · or €35,000 – 50,000 per year
Includes A ImageB ContentC ExperiencesD Co-creation
  • The brand name on the project and the option to name the boat.
  • Lead position on spinnaker, mainsail and hull topsides.
  • Total sector exclusivity and first refusal on adjacent categories.
  • Full access for their own production and image rights licensed.
  • Experience programme in A Coruña, La Rochelle and Salvador de Bahía.
  • A co-creation project developed with the brand.
Technical partner
Contribution in product
One brand per category · sailmaking, rigging, electronics, safety, technical clothing
Includes A ImageB Content
  • Graphic presence on the area of the boat linked to the product.
  • Specific content about the equipment in real use.
  • A technical assessment after each season.
  • Photography and video of the equipment under sail, licensed.
Status
  • Boero Bartolomeo — paint and hull treatment. Active technical partner.
  • Operating base and yard in A Coruña. Boat launched and sailing.
  • Electronics and navigation — verbal agreement, pending signature.
  • Sailmaking, rigging and safety — open.

The project name and the lead position are still available.

I work with a deliberately small number of partners. The less crowded the boat, the more every square metre is worth.

Next step

A conversation, not a form

Whether a brand fits this is decided by talking. Write to me and we will build a concrete proposal for your sector, with the surfaces, the milestones and the calendar that interest you. If you want to start with one race, tell me which.

Write to me See the project