Andreas sails competitively at the highest level and has already achieved many national and international podium results. At the same time, increasing sustainability and the energy transformation away from fossil fuels is a matter close to Andreas’ heart.
As an agricultural and environmental scientist, it is important to Andreas that our daily actions have added value for the environment and our future.
Accordingly, in addition to his sailing career, Andreas has been intensively involved in the energy transition and sustainability. In addition to keynote speeches in all areas of sustainability, his work focused in particular on consulting and supporting measures in the area of energy-efficient neighborhood development and the heating transition.
In 2023, Andreas was given the opportunity to join Fabrice Amedeo’s team for the season and co-skipper the Transat Jacques Vabres with Fabrice on his IMOCA 60 racing yacht. This offer was the perfect match for Andreas, because in addition to their shared sporting ambitions, Fabrice and Andreas also share the same values in terms of sustainability. This enabled them to successfully achieve their goal of completing the Transat Jacques Vabres with a distance of over 4,000 miles and 16 days, 21 hours, 52 minutes and 40 seconds at sea without the use of fossil fuels. Their IMOCA had a smart grid on board in which the required energy was generated with the help of solar panels and hydrogen generators and temporarily stored in lithium-ion batteries.
In addition, an OceanPack Race from SubCtech GmbH was installed on board, which was used to continuously measure the water temperature, salinity and oxygen content in the Atlantic while sailing. This data is made available to the scientific community, which incorporates it into studies on the health and condition of our oceans.
As part of his own campaign for the Vendée Globe 2028, Andreas wants to show that sustainable and energetically progressive approaches can be put together like a puzzle, complementing each other and thus allowing the areas of water sports, composite materials and energy to be further developed in a future-oriented and sustainable manner.