THE NETWORK: BORIS HERRMANN
Professional offshore sailor • Holds 12 world records • Skipper of Team Malizia • Sailed Greta Thunberg across the Atlantic • Has completed three circumnavigations of the globe
Photo by Eric White
Boris is a world-class sailor who competes in the biggest races the sport has to offer. In 2020, Boris will go for his thirteenth world record when he becomes the first German to take on the Vendee Globe: a solo, 75-day race around the Southern Ocean. Fewer than 100 people have ever completed the challenge.
As the skipper for Team Malizia, Boris sails with his teammate Pierre Casiraghi. Together, they promote ocean science, protection, and education all over the world. “Malizia” was the nickname for Francesco Grimaldi, a 13th-century seafaring Genovese whose descendants still rule Monaco today. In tribute to their namesake, which means ‘the wily one,’ Team Malizia sails to inspire the next generation’s attachment to the sea.
Boris’ passions for sailing and the seas led him to start My Ocean Challenge with Pierre and their team. With this program, Boris has traveled for twelve years, sharing his adventures and teaching children about the ocean’s natural beauty. Most recently, Boris and Pierre sailed climate activist Greta Thunberg across the Atlantic on their 60ft foiling race yacht—helping Thunberg reach the United Nations Climate Summit emission-free.
Photos by Eric White
“For many people, the climate movement is a whole new topic. That's why it's important to talk to each other.”
BORIS HERRMANN
Photo by Ben Lozovsky
Q&A
Boris shares some at-sea perspective during the Vendée Globe 2020
What is your personal ocean mission and vision for the future?
My mission is to bring the ocean to the schools, to inspire school kids through the ocean's beauty and importance of the earth's climate system. The biggest threat is climate change and CO2. CO2 acidifies the oceans and harms all ecosystems tremendously. To understand this interlinking of climate and ocean is our main mission with the Malizia Ocean Challenge. My vision is that the ocean can be a sustainable ocean in all regards… We live with and from the ocean — about 40% of the human population lives along the coasts. The oceans will be a challenge for us with sea level rise. The hope for the future is we manage to turn around and win the race against time — a race we must win to tackle climate change with solutions that go online fast enough and help to tremendously reduce emissions.
Why is it important to you to carry the messages “A Race We Must Win” and “Unite Behind the Science” on your sails?
“A Race We Must Win” is a race humanity faces, a race against time. You have such a strong feeling for the race aspect when you are actually racing at sea. I find the boat to be a good metaphor we have to understand the urgency. Every second counts, every bit we can save in emissions counts. But we have to do them now, we cannot wait. We have a very short timeframe. “Unite Behind The Science” is Greta’s slogan that we kept. It means that science should not be questioned. It's clearly obvious that science has a huge conscience. 99.9% of all important scientists agree on the basis of climate study and facts. We have to act accordingly but we don't. Every house is emitting too much CO2, each city, each government. There are things that have to be done immediately and they have to be done immediately because we don't have time.
You’ve called Vendee Globe the ‘Everest of the Sea.’ How do you prepare yourself mentally for a challenge of this scale?
I just practiced a lot. I have sailed around the world before. My career was going to this point. Going through this in my mind and visualizing it and trying to adapt the slogan, ‘one day at a time’. It is a big challenge, the same can be applied to any big challenge, also climate change. If we take it day by day, we can also take on big mental challenges and not be overwhelmed by the little things. In my case, the length of it.
What’s it like to be alone in the middle of the ocean? How do you deal with fear?
The main thing I focus on is the ‘one day at a time’ slogan. That takes away some of the fear, because fears are often projections into the future. If I stop thinking about the future, and think day by day, then fears go to the background and I can focus on the task at hand that I have to do alone.
Even a solo sailing race takes a team. Why is collaboration important to your work as a professional sailor and climate activist?
Yeah, generally in life, humans are social animals and we depend on social interactions... I realize how brutal it is, how crazy it is to be thrown into the time alone, isolated. It is normal to focus on social interaction. It is just a special adventure. It makes you realize how important humans and people are. You cannot achieve big dreams alone, you need to find the right people along the way.
What’s your earliest memory of the ocean?
Sailing with my dad on a small, simple boat. At low tide we would sit on the sand bed as the water was flowing.
What’s the hardest question you've been asked by the next generation (e.g. through your My Ocean Challenge youth education programs)?
I can't remember right now but if I think about it a bit it's probably why don't we do more. Is it too late? The smartest question I have been asked was if we consider what the US policies are doing, shouldn't they be excluded from UNESCO?
What's one thing you learned crossing the Atlantic with Greta Thunberg?
I learned a bit about my boat, how to sail faster, better, energy systems… we prepared it to be really emissions free so we had to push our solar system. I learned from her this kind of relaxedness — climate change is something we’re all dealing with so damn politics, that's not the issue, we need to work with everyone here. Everyone can do something. Everyone can be in the same boat. Forget politics, listen to the science and do something.
What's your favorite sea creature?
The Albatross. An animal that flies the Antarctica sea and can circumnavigate the whole Antarctic continent in just 20 days or so.
And your favorite ocean fact?
The ocean creates the oxygen for every second breath we breathe. The ocean is where climate change happens. They capture 93 percent of the heat energy of the warming of the Earth’s man-made warming, not the atmosphere, it's the ocean that does so.
To learn more and follow Boris’s journey around the globe:
Ahead of the launch of his forthcoming book, we revisit The Outlaw Ocean with regular Parley speaker Ian Urbina.