Profile: Amélie Grassi’s career in the fast lane – the biggest race is yet to come

​She is only 32 years old, yet she is already as rich in experience as France’s salt marshes are in Fleur de Sel. Never before has a professional sailor achieved such a broad outlook. Neither at her age nor at any other. In less than a decade, this woman from the Atlantic coast, born in the seafaring town of La Rochelle, has climbed the entire traditional career ladder of French ocean sailors. Amélie Grassi has sailed Minis, Figaros, Class40s, Imocas and Ultims. Now she is also competing in the America’s Cup . The One-Handed World Regatta remains Vendée Globe the long-term goal.

Between ballet and sailing boats

The sea has always been close at hand for Amélie Grassi. Nor was she short of role models during her childhood. Her mother competed in the Mini-Transat in 2009 and later worked in professional team management. Her father had completed the 2010 Route du Rhum in the Class40 class and founded his yacht dealership, Grassi Bateaux, in La Rochelle. Sandrine Bertho and Olivier Grassi instilled a strong love of sailing in their daughter from a very young age.

Admittedly, until the age of 13, little Amélie preferred ballet to sailing. Yet the sport of sailing began to draw her in more and more. She’d already had a taste of it as a little girl. She spent almost all her holidays with her siblings at her grandparents’ homes: either with her maternal grandparents in northern Brittany or with her paternal grandparents near Brest. Both grandfathers owned sailing boats, which they regularly took out to sea – often to go mackerel fishing. Cruising was their shared ‘pleasure’ – more a part of everyday life than an exotic adventure.

Amélie took her time getting into competitive sailing. At the age of twelve, she responded to a call for applicants at the La Rochelle Nautique sailing club. They were looking for a girl to sail a 420 with a boy. This start to her sailing career still fits well with the eldest of the Grassi sisters, who never makes a distinction between men and women in her sport.

Later, she moved to the sports and study centre in La Baule for two years, where she took her A-levels at the Lycée Grand Air in 2012. “We were out sailing at least four days a week. That was good, but I’d started late and was small,” recalls Amélie Grassi of the time when she first learnt sailing, tactics and strategy systematically.

During her three-year Bachelor’s degree in Law at the University of Nantes, she scaled back her sailing slightly, though she still sailed “quite a lot on catamarans such as Vipers or F18s”. She recalls: “We were a good team, we even won national and European championships, but we didn’t have the time for an Olympic campaign. Even so, sailing was still a big part of my life.”

The Sorbonne demands a sacrifice

That changed radically when she moved on to the next stage of her studies. Amélie Grassi was accepted onto a Master’s programme in labour law at the renowned Sorbonne University in Paris. By moving to Paris, she left the world of wind and waves behind her: “I’d almost given up sailing. I enjoyed my studies. When you get into the Sorbonne, you want to live that life to the full. You have to make sacrifices.”

By the end of her two-year Master’s programme in the capital, her longing for sailing had become overwhelming. Amélie Grassi put her plans for her PhD on hold. In 2017, she began thinking about offshore sailing and recalled watching the start of the Mini-Transat in 2015. “I thought at the time that they must all be completely mad. But I loved it too,” she says with a hearty laugh.

She decides that now is a good time to take a break in favour of sailing. Her plan back then: “I’ll make it a two-year project and take part in the Mini-Transat. I know it’ll be tough. But I’m also sure I can manage it.” She brings the skills needed for this not only on the water. “My hobby is drawing up tables, to-do lists and timetables. At work, I like processing data, analysing figures and doing all the hard work,” says the driven woman, who is regarded as very disciplined.

The phone call to Loïck Peyron

Her first sponsors were her parents: Amélie was given a Verdier Pogo 3. “They bought me a really lovely boat, which I was able to sail quite well in. And once you’ve started sailing, it’s much easier to find sponsors,” she quickly realised.

Whilst she was working her way towards the 2019 Mini Transat with remarkably good preliminary results, she came across a newspaper article during a visit to her mother’s house. It stated that the great Loïck Peyron was returning to the Figaro Circuit in the inaugural year of the new Figaro 3 boats. What’s more, the sailing icon wanted to take young people on board for his comeback to share his experiences. “It also said that he’d like to sail with a woman. I thought to myself how lucky that woman must feel to be allowed to sail with him,” Amélie recalls with a smile.

She tells her mother about it. Her mother’s reply: “I’ve got his number. You should give him a call.” Amélie points out that she’d only started offshore sailing two months earlier. That wasn’t an option. Sandrine Bertho looks at her daughter and says: “I’m really glad I was able to help you with the boat and other things. But if you’ve got the chance to ring Loïck Peyron, then you should go for it. If he says yes, that’s great. If he says no, that’s fine too.” As Amélie slowly dials the number, she fervently hopes that no one will pick up at the other end. But Peyron answers. The conversation goes just as you’d expect from the jack-of-all-trades of French sailing: open, interested and funny. As he’s still waiting for his new Figaro, they decide to do a test sail on her Mini in Lorient.

On the agreed day, a training session with the double-handed group is on the agenda. Amélie recalls it vividly: “Loïck’s always late. That’s how it was that morning too. The others asked me who I wanted to sail with today. I didn’t dare say his name because I thought he might not turn up at all.” Peyron arrives in the middle of the briefing. “Everyone thought it was a joke – seriously?”, says Grassi. “The day turned out to be so brilliant, simply unforgettable! Loïck is so happy when he’s sailing. He savours every single moment of it – it’s fantastic!”

Amélie Grassi is welcomed into the Figaro 3 crew. Peyron, who becomes a “good teacher and mentor” to her, also speaks to his project partners about the up-and-coming young woman. He describes her as “passionate and constructive”. Action Enfance becomes the main sponsor of her Mini campaign, which she finishes in 2019 in eighth place as the best solo sailor in a production boat, despite only being able to start the second leg 14 hours after the start due to technical problems and having to chase the field. She does so masterfully. This performance puts her fighting spirit in the spotlight. Afterwards, she realises: “I enjoy the racing, being alone at sea, the challenge and its intensity.”

Shortly before the race, she had discussed vague ideas about turning professional with her then sparring partner, good friend and flatmate Ambrogio Beccaria. At that stage, however, the plan was still to return to Paris to work on her PhD. After the race – which Beccaria won in the one-design class – it became clear to Amélie Grassi too: “I have to find a way to carry on with this.”

The move up to Class40

Two days after crossing the finish line, she received a phone call: “Two people got in touch with me who wanted to launch a professional project. That’s when I knew I wouldn’t be going back to Paris.” The project later fell through because the Covid pandemic also put a stop to sailing dreams. But then talks with the sponsor La Boulangère Bio bore fruit, developing into a four-year project in the Class40 for Amélie Grassi.

Things took off rapidly. She would later say: “This project taught me to manage everything: the boat, the team, the partners and the pressure.” Yet even this rising star was not spared from setbacks. During the Route du Rhum on 12 November 2022, she was one of four victims on that fateful day when Thibault Voucher-Camus capsized in his Tri, Louis Burton loses his IMOCA mast, and the masts on ‘La Boulangère Bio’ and another Class40 snap in stormy winds.

For Grassi, this is no reason for prolonged lamentation. She continues to drive forward her training and development, both single-handed and double-handed, with a succession of co-skippers. Her pace remains high. For 2023, ‘Biotherm’ skipper Paul Meilhat brings her into his team, marking her entry into the IMOCA class. Alongside the Class40 programme, Grassi competes in two legs with the barely-funded project. For Meilhat and Grassi, despite many technical setbacks, it marks the beginning of a collaboration characterised by enormous respect, which two years later culminates in the Victory in the Ocean Race Europe leads to. She’s already his co-skipper.

“Amélie is definitely a brilliant sailor. But she’s also capable of managing a team and sponsors. She has a great deal of maturity, knowledge and, of course, her heritage. And yet she’s still so young,” says 44-year-old Paul Meilhat, paying tribute to the woman twelve years his junior.

On the world’s fastest offshore boats

At this stage, in addition to all the other classes she has sailed in, she already has considerable Ultim experience to her name. “Even during the Class40 project, I had the opportunity to sail on the Ultim ‘Actual’, partly because my family were running the project, but also because I’d earned it,” says Amélie Grassi. Yves Le Blevec is the team manager. He had already supported his stepdaughter when she first started out in the Mini class and knew right from the start: “She’s a fighter through and through. She’s capable of channelling enormous energy and works with great intensity. She’s extremely competitive.”

Amélie worked as a temporary assistant on the demanding Ultim project for many years, taking part in transits, training sessions and, eventually, regattas. “This experience on the big boat helped me when I made the move to IMOCA,” says the woman whose sphere of activity is expanding at an explosive rate.

Hard to imagine, but true: 2025 is set to be an even more intense year for her than any before. As well as the Ocean Race Europe, she’ll be competing in the Class40 round-the-world race at the end of the year Globe40 She also completed two long legs with Ian Lipinski on his winning “Crédit Mutuel”. In the meantime, she applied for an OceanFifty place on the UpWind by MerConcept development programme. On camera, she is told after the selection process that she has not been chosen for the programme. Just as she is wondering whether they are trying to make her cry “live”, the reason is given.

Amélie Grassi recounts: “Then they said: ‘… because we’re looking for someone for the Jules Verne Trophy on the “SVR Lazartigue”’.” She can hardly believe it. “It’s one of the fastest offshore boats in the world. I’m so lucky to have been part of the team,” she says, looking back.

In the summer of 2025, she’ll take part in the Fastnet Race with the elite ‘SVR Lazartigue’ crew. Working alongside skipper Tom Laperche, multihull icon Franck Cammas, three-time America’s Cup winner Peter Burling, Antoine Gautier and Emilien Lavigne, she continues to learn, learn and learn at breakneck speed.

Starting a family between two regatta projects

The year 2025 will also remain unforgettable on a personal level: she married professional sailor Alan Roberts, who has lived in Brittany for years and works for major racing teams. Like other leading figures in the IMOCA scene, Roberts also studied shipbuilding at the renowned University of Southampton. He trained at the Artemis Offshore Academy and the Pôle Finistère, has completed 70,000 solo nautical miles in the Figaro class alone, and has sailed on IMOCA yachts both with and against his wife.

The British man and the Frenchwoman met in 2019 at the Figaro Sardinha Cup regatta. For the past two years, they have been living in their house near Lorient, which they have renovated together. “I enjoy doing DIY around the house when I have time,” says Amélie Grassi, who likes to unwind by going for a wingfoil session or a hike. A new addition to the Grassi family will soon be enriching their lives: Amélie Grassi and Alan Roberts are expecting their first child in November.

From offshore sailing to the America’s Cup

This new phase of her life is set against the backdrop of yet another daunting challenge involving a dramatic shift in perspective: since March, Amélie Grassi has been a member of the French America’s Cup team, La Roche-Posay Racing, which makes her CV truly unique. “It’s rare in France for people to move between these two worlds – offshore sailing and the America’s Cup. I was surprised when I received the call from team manager Bruno Dubois,” says Amélie, who, according to her team-mates, achieved outstanding results in the simulator tests.

She works in the Systems & Strategy department for Bleu-Blanc-Rouge. Together with Maelenn Lemaitre, a graduate of the K-Challenge Academy, she took turns in the women’s position – a requirement for the 38th Cup cycle – on the AC75 foiler “I should love flying on it, because I’ve already flown on 32-metre boats,” said Grassi, referring to the Ultims, which are around ten metres longer than the monohull foilers in the America’s Cup.

In September, the entire French Cup team moved to Naples. Amélie Grassi has rented a house there, which is big enough to accommodate her grandmothers and the rest of the family, who will be helping to look after the baby after the birth.

When asked about the most important supporters in her already unique sailing career, Amélie Grassi says: “Firstly, my parents, who spent so much time with me at sea when we were still young. Then my mother’s husband: Yves Le Blevec gave me plenty of time, guidance and opportunities to develop at the start of my professional career – from Mini to Ultim. Then there’s Paul Meilhat, who came on board later but was the first to give me the role of co-skipper and, with it, his trust. That means a lot to me because it changes your mindset. Paul’s attitude has given me self-confidence. And Loïck certainly has too.”

The Vendée Globe remains the ultimate goal

Amélie Grassi will be putting all her existing and newly acquired skills to good use for her Cup team in the run-up to the summer. She believes in the team, saying: “We’ve got off to a flying start as a Cup team; we’ve got a strong squad.”

She isn’t planning a long break after the Naples Cup next summer either. That’s because she has long since set her sights on her next goal: her Vendée Globe debut.

The ideal plan, involving continued close cooperation with Paul Meilhat, is for him to compete in the Ocean Race round the world with a crew from 17 January onwards “United by the Ocean” in which Boris Herrmann is also competing. Amélie Grassi could then take over the Meilhat-Imoca. First for potential two-handed races with Paul Meilhat, then for a solo round-the-world voyage.

​Amélie Grassi’s journey takes her from one major goal to the next. Do you think she’ll succeed in the Vendée Globe too? Let us know what you think in the comments.