Start in Mini and 505 dinghy classes (2001-2007) In 2001 Boris Herrmann was the youngest (and the only German) participant in the
Mini Transat race, a
single-handed yacht race across the Atlantic. He came to finish eleventh which earned him his first larger appearance in the yachting press. From 1999 onwards he competed in the
505 dinghy class. In 2006 Herrmann finished second in the European Championship as well as in the German Championship in the
505 class. He also competed in the
505 World Championships finishing 17th in 2005, 7th in 2006 and 9th in 2007 in highly competitive 100+ boat fleets.
Class 40 and various offshore sailing projects (2008-2017) In spring 2008 Herrmann sailed his Class 40 yacht “Beluga Racer” to a second in the
Artemis Transat, the oldest transatlantic regatta for single-handed yachts. Boris Herrmann won the
Portimão Global Ocean Race in 2008, a five leg regatta around the world for Class 40 boats. He and his co-skipper
Felix Oehme (the
Beluga Offshore Sailing Team) came to win three of the five legs of the race, and left behind the team
Desafio Cabo de Hornos. This makes them the first German professional team on a German yacht to win a leg of an international trans-ocean race and the whole race itself. With the crew of the Italian skipper
Giovanni Soldini he was part in setting a new record on the "Golden Route" from New York to San Francisco in 2014. With a modified
Volvo Ocean 70 yacht "Maserati" they finished in 47 days and 42 minutes, about 10 days faster than the previous record. In 2015 he was part of an international crew skippered by
Francis Joyon for an attempt on the
Jules Verne Trophy. Though completing the circumnavigation they failed to break the record of
Loïck Peyron from 2012 by 2 days. He made a second attempt for the Jules Verne Trophy in 2016 again with Francis Joyon as a skipper and on the trimaran
IDEC Sport. They abandoned the race after 6 days due to bad weather making a record highly unlikely. 2016 and 2017 he participated in the
GC32 Racing Tour leading the Team Malizia alongside
Pierre Casiraghi. He crossed the finish line in 5th place with an elapsed time of 80d 20h 59m 45s. In total Boris Herrmann achieved 5th place between
Jean Le Cam on 4th and
Thomas Ruyant on 6th place. Due to a granted time compensation of 6 hours as part of the rescue of
Kevin Escoffier in late November 2020, Boris Herrmann came out with a total regatta time of 80d 14h 59m 45s. On the 19th June 2022 he launched his new boat
Malizia-Seaexplorer, with which he participated in the
14th edition of
The Ocean Race. The ship is constructed for his participation in the
2024/2025 Vendée Globe. In 2023 Boris Herrmann competed in the
14th edition of
The Ocean Race, sailing around the world in the toughest crewed race in the world over with co-skippers Will Harris, Rosalin Kuiper, Nicolas Lunven and Antoine Auriol. The crew passed Cape Horn in first place in leg 3 of the race. During the first leg he injured his foot which led to him skipping the second leg. Herrmann and his crew reached third place overall and second in the in-port-series. In the 2024/2025 Vendeé Globe Boris Herrmann scored an overall 12th place with Malizia-Seaexplorer. Having fallen back during the initial days of the race, Herrmann managed to race back into the top 10. After some technical difficulties involving the J2 and a nearby lightning strike, a collision with an unidentified object or animal damaged one of the foils on January 16. This ultimately forced Herrmann to focus on finishing the race in whatever safe fashion still possible.
Malizia-Seaexplorer was sold to 11th hour racing in 2025, for italian-american skipper
Francesca Clapcich. Boris Herrmann subsequently announced the construction of a new IMOCA 60. == Other activities ==