Baranger’s Open 50 aluminium, from Défi Intégration to La Voix de l'Océan
Jolokia is a Open 50 (Rhum 50) aluminium sailboat designed by Eric Baranger and built in 2003 by the Grand Large Shipyard in Saint-Malo. It competed in two Route du Rhum races under Eric Jail (2014, 2018), holds a mixed crew record Lorient–Mauritius (Défi Intégration, 2010), and has served since 2020 as a platform for La Voix de l'Océan (Eric Letellier, Pierre Bardoux, Longitude 181 association).
Architecture and construction
- Overall length: 15.24 m (50 feet)
- Beam: 5.10 m
- Displacement: 10 t
- Upwind sail area: mainsail 100 m², genoa 70 m²
- Downwind sail area: spinnaker 200 m²
- Aluminium hull, Rhum 50 class
Baranger is the reference architect for the Rhum 50 class and works extensively with aluminium for offshore racing. Choosing aluminium over composite allowed heavy modifications for Défi Intégration without starting from a new design.
Boat achievements
- 2010 — Lorient (Port-Louis, Morbihan) to Mauritius (Port-Louis) via Cape of Good Hope record: 68 days 22 hours 52 minutes 2 seconds, first WSSRC-certified ocean record for a mixed crew of able-bodied sailors and people with disabilities (Défi Intégration, Eric Bellion).
- 2014 — Route du Rhum, Rhum class, skippered by Eric Jail.
- 2018 — Route du Rhum, Rhum Mono class, skippered by Eric Jail under the colours of Longitude 181 (boat renamed for the event as La Voix de l'Océan); race abandoned due to damage.
Conversion to a scientific platform
Letellier and Bardoux acquired the boat around 2020 to deploy it for the La Voix de l'Océan programme, run with Longitude 181. Under this new flag, Jolokia collects seawater samples for university research on nanoplastics (Stony Brook SoMAS, Staffordshire University) alongside awareness campaigns.
The Team Jolokia association (Eric Bellion, Pierre Meisel), which shares the name and the disability-inclusive DNA inherited from Défi Intégration, has raced since 2012 on a different boat, a VO60 ex-Djuice Dragons based in Lorient — not to be confused with the Open 50 described here.
