1. Accueil
  2. The Team
  3. Annabelle Boudinot
Odyssey Members

Annabelle Boudinot

Second in command

“I am happy and proud to be able to convey the Foundation’s message. It may be utopian but I hope that in my own way, however modestly, I am helping to change the world”.

Annabelle Boudinot: calm, assured and empathetic: “I will be the second in command on the odyssey”.

Annabelle, a young woman of 33, was born on the water. “My parents have always sailed. As a child, I never knew any other holidays than those on our yacht”. Far from making do with her post as boatperson, at just 16 years of age she took the controls of the family boat and then went on to become a sailing instructor. “Yachts have always interested me, to the extent that I became a mechanical and design engineer at the UTBM. I went on to specialise in naval engineering during my work placements and professional experiences”.

Proud of her career in a firm of naval architects, she then aspired to return to her favourite environment, the sea. “I had a go at offshore racing and did a Mini Transat, then I worked as second in command on a schooner in the polar region”. Deeply saddened by the state of the oceans, she was keen to take action to preserve them. And in order to protect these same oceans, you have to share knowledge and raise public awareness. “I am happy and proud to be able to convey the Foundation’s message. It may be utopian but I hope that in my own way, however modestly, I am helping to change the world.

Annabelle in brief: 

  • Less than 3 months old: first sail
  • 28 June 1983: born in Soyaux in the Charente
  • 2006: secured a degree in mechanical and design engineering at the UTBM
  • 2010: structural engineer and project manager at the Van Peteghem Lauriot-Prévost naval architecture firm in Vannes, south-west Brittany
  • 2013: 9th in the Mini Transat a singlehanded transatlantic race under sail