Some go from business to sailing. Others do the opposite. After more than fifteen years as a top-level sailor, sought-after crew member and renowned skipper, Christopher Pratt has turned the corner.

In 2008, this Marseilles native founded 'Marsail', an agency which initially specialised in nautical events, but soon turned its attention to management support solutions for companies, using competitive sailing as its medium. Last year, he took things to the next level by buying an Ocean Fifty to use as his 'flagship'. And now, as nature rears its ugly head, he's offering his ocean-going multihull much more than just a few circles in the water off Marseille for employees. Rather, it's the Ocean Fifty Series circuit, which has included the MEDMAX I Occitanie-Saïdia Resorts in its 2024 programme.

At 43 years of age, Christopher Pratt's past is multi-faceted. Runner-up in the 420 World Championship at the age of 18, he later became the youngest competitor in the Imoca class (60-foot monohulls) in the 2010 Route du Rhum. In the meantime, he had won the Challenge Espoirs Crédit Agricole in the Figaro class before continuing his training in the Transat Jacques-Vabre with renowned skippers such as Armel Le Cleac'h and Jérémie Beyou, in whose team, the Charal Sailing Team, he has been unanimously selected as the replacement skipper for the 2020 Vendée Globe. The role of understudy in the event of the official skipper being unavailable, a role he had already played for Armel Le Cleac'h in the 2012 Vendée... In 2021, he will be lining up at the start of his 6th Transat Jacques Vabre, to take 3rd place on the podium on Charal with his mentor Jérémie Beyou. "In fact, I've sailed a lot of monohulls," admits the skipper, who forgets that he was in charge of performance on the maxi trimaran Banque Populaire and a crew member on another maxi, Sprindrift. But it's true that he hasn't had much time to get to grips with his new 'toy', this 15 metre ocean-going multihull. It's another challenge," smiles the man who is the only one of the other Ocean Fifty competitors in the MED MAX I Occitanie-Saïdia Resorts to know the Mediterranean. Not an unbeatable asset," he admits.
As for his 'Wind of Trust - Fondation pour l'Enfance', he too has a fine track record. Launched in August 2009, designed by multihull wizards Marc Van Peteghem and Vincent Lauriot Prévost and built by CDK, this elegant multihull has gone from strength to strength (Route du Rhum, Transat Jacques, Québec-Saint-Malo, Multi50 circuit) in the hands of experts like Franck-Yves Escoffier and Erwan Leroux. It remains to be seen in September whether the Mediterranean air will suit her just as well.