Devonport Challenge 67

The Challenge 67' Class yachtswere designed for The Challenge Business by David Thomas, specifically to race around the world “the wrong way”. The design brief called for exceptionally strong, seaworthy, fast, attractive, modern, steel yachts that were able to sail to windward across the Southern Ocean in relative comfort. - she's unbreakableSafety was paramount both in terms of structural strength and crew safety. Because of the One Design nature of the race, the design was not influenced or distorted by any rating rule and a sensible displacement was specified. Other important design considerations include, ease of access to the structure, equipment, systems, wiring and fittings for maintenance and inspections both at sea and in harbor. Every piece of equipment had to be robust enough to survive a race around the world with minimum maintenance.Devonport Yachts (DML) were chosen to build the fleet to Bureau Veritas highest notation. The construction method allows relatively simple and cost effective alterations to the interior layout.I AM Oceanwas purchased from the UK Ministry of Defense in 2016 by Challenger LLC and has been used as an expedition vessel from 2017 to present. Since this time she has been routinely maintained to a high standard.The I AM OCEAN history:After sailing around the world in the BT Global Challenge race, the Challenge 67 was acquired by the UK Ministry of Defense and used as a sail training vessel. In 2016 she took on a new role as a support yacht for the following 2 expeditions where athletic feat, research, and education intercept with a common mission to bring attention and conscience toward marine plastic pollution.The Swim Expedition:In 2018, Ben Lecomte attempted a stage swim from Tokyo to San Francisco for the purpose of bringing attention to the plastic contamination of our oceans, meanwhile collecting valuable data and sampling key indicators with 27 international scientific partners, including, but not limited to: NASA, Scripps, Royal Netherlands institute, University of CA Santa Cruz, International Pacific Research Center, University of Texas, University Toulon, U of Montana, U of Portsmouth, U of ChicagoLecomte averaged swimming 8 hours/day while using GPS tracking. Each morning his support vessel returned to the previous day’s stop location. A crew of 9 supported The Swim board a 67ft sailing vessel, specifically refitted for extended expeditions without resupply. Two of the crew were assigned by a production company to document the expedition (Documentary ‘The Swim’ was released on April 15th 2021 by Discovery). The remaining 7 crew were volunteers.After successfully swimming 1500NM, and spending 165 days at sea, the expedition terminated due to heavy weather conditions. However the early termination of The Swim did not alter the primary goals of the expedition and the following year Lecomte and his team were able to complete the first Trans-North-Pacific surface sampling of plastic pollution on the second expedition titled the ‘Vortex Swim’, which focused on the North Pacific Gyre, also known as The Great Pacific Garbage Patch.The Vortex Swim Expedition:The Vortex Swim Expedition was supported by land-based guidance from a multiple of scientific partners with the crew systematically gathering observations, collecting pelagic data, and plastic samplings within specific areas in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch (GPGP). By swimming through this concentrated environmental disaster Ben shared his intimate experience with the world through his unique point of. As with ‘The Swim’, the Vortex Expedition’s crew was selected based on skillset required for the many tasks to fulfill such as scientific data collections, sampling, navigation, sailing, communication, medical support and videography/photography. ‘The Vortex’ goals included Lecomte swimming 1 Nautical Mile for each million tons of plastic produced globally per year (300 million tons). He swam over 338 NM in the Vortex expedition, establishing a Guinness World Record.Show More