JIMMY'S ELECTRIC DREAM

JIMMY CORNELL REPORTS ON HIS NEW CATAMARAN, ABOARD WHICH HE PLANS A FOSSIL-FREE CIRCUMNAVIGATION

- JIMMY CORNELL

We couldn’t have picked a more miserable day to go out for our first sail on Aventura Zero. As we left the marina, grey skies hung low over the bay of La Grande Motte and it felt more like being in the North West Passage than the south of France. But once the sails were up, Aventura, a bespoke version of the Outremer 45, came alive and the magic took over.

As I took hold of the wheel, I felt a surge of mixed emotions: excitement, satisfaction, but above all a great relief that my complex and challenging project has become reality. I also felt 30 years younger.

Barely a year ago I realised that my active years were soon going to be over, and I ought to do something special, but also relevant, while still able to do it. This is how the idea was born of a round the world voyage in a fully electric boat along the route of the first circumnavigation 500 years ago. As I explained in a previous report (Yachting World

April 2020), even for a dyed-in-the-wool monohull sailor like myself opting for a catamaran seemed to be the best solution for the voyage I had in mind. A performance cruising catamaran would be fast under sail and thus able to generate electricity; it would also have sufficient surface available to display several solar panels.