Groupe Bel then Le Souffle du Nord then Killcullen Team Ireland then V and B – Mayenne then Mail Boxes Etc. then Imagine / MS Amlin
Built in Italy at the Indiana Yachting yard, Groupe Bel was launched in 2007, one month after her sistership Safran. She featured an unusual cockpit with helm stations designed in close collaboration with her skipper Kito de Pavant. The hanging rudders were interchangeable, as a precaution if damaged, and her keels were straight.
As with her older sister her design brief focused on lightness and power, a not too subtle nod to the ambitions of the thoroughbred multihulls.
Sold and skippered by Armel Tripon in 2014, she then entered the 2016–17 Vendée Globe under the name Le Souffle du Nord with Thomas Ruyant at the wheel, retiring in New Zealand. She was then bought by Enda O’Coineen, who was also forced to retire from the Vendée Globe, in order to finish his trip around the world.
Subsequently picked up by Maxime Sorel for the 2020 Vendée Globe, she at last completed a single-handed circumnavigation, arriving 10th as V and B – Mayenne.
In 2023, the IMOCA – renamed Mail Boxes Etc. (MBE) – is taken over by the skipper Conrad Colman to compete in the two transatlantic races of the 2023 end-of-season.
She will take the start of the 2024 Vendée Globe as Imagine / MS Amlin.
