Engineer, VPLP Design

Katia Merle

After studying Yacht Design at Southampton in 2003-2006, I trained and worked as a composite structural engineer at GURIT(UK) for 14 years, specialising in high performance sailing yachts and managing the structural engineering of several leading IMOCA projects.
I joined VPLP in 2019 with the intention to widen the scope of my work. Without putting aside my technical expertise, my role has evolved into technical project management, and sustainability specialist. I have supported the work of the IMOCA class in establishing Sustainability rules, and work on developing the new skills and tools needed to integrate sustainability as part of VPLP’s design work.