Class40 remains the largest fleet in the Route du Rhum, Destination Guadeloupe, and this year it lines up 49 boats strong. It's also the class that best captures what the race is really about.
Amateurs and full-time professionals share a start line, sailing everything from modern wide-bowed scows to the older, narrower "pointu" hulls. All of them face the same problem: getting across the Atlantic in one piece during the rough tail end of the year, before the reward of Guadeloupe's warm arrival.
Four years ago the fleet waited three extra days in Saint-Malo for a break in the weather. Once it came, the racing was brutal and close. The first seven boats arrived within 20 hours of each other on the far side of the Atlantic.
This edition carries extra weight because the class needs a new champion. Yoann Richomme won the last two runnings, in 2018 and 2022, and his reign is now over. Two names dominate the talk: Guillaume Pirouelle (Sogestran Seafrigo) and Corentin Douguet (SNSM, Faites un don!). "They've shared the biggest wins between them for two seasons now, I see them as the clear favourites," says Alexis Loison (Groupe Réel).
Pirouelle won the Transat Café L'Or in 2025, along with the Trin40 and the CIC Normandy Channel Race this season. Douguet took out the CIC Normandy Channel Race himself, plus the Rolex Fastnet Race in 2025 and the Dhream Cup in 2026. Beyond the two favourites, plenty of other names could also challenge for the podium.
"There's a very significant number of outsiders," Loison says. Names in that bracket include Pep Costa (VSF Sports, winner of the Round Ireland Yacht Channel), Quentin Le Nabour (Bleu Blanc Planète Location, second in the 40 Malouine) and Fabien Delahaye (Legallais, winner of the Sables Horta). Ian Lipinski (Crédit Mutuel), Axel Tréhin, Achille Nebout (Amarris) and Loison himself, fresh off winning the 40 Malouine, are all in the mix too. "It's going to be a real scrap and I love that," Loison adds. "The level in this class is very high. There's quantity and quality both."
There is a second contest running inside the main one. Most of the fleet now sails scows, with their wide, rounded bows, but around ten boats are still racing the older pointu design. Mathieu Claveau (Phare 40), based in the Mediterranean, is one of them. "I really like this idea of accessibility that the pointus offer," he says. "It's brilliant to be able to race a prestigious event like the Route du Rhum, Destination Guadeloupe, on our kind of boat."
He compares it to the IMOCA class, where older daggerboard boats race alongside modern foilers. "Even without the same budgets as the scows, we've still got good boats capable of racing well," Claveau says. Loïc Féquet and Djamila Tassin (Magenta) will be among his closest rivals in that battle.
Former Vendée Globe winner Vincent Riou (Pierreval-Fondation GoodPlanet) also lines up in Class40, alongside a notably international fleet. Milan Koláček becomes the first Czech skipper to start the race. Italians Andrea Fornaro (Influence2), Luca Rosetti (Maccaferri Futura) and Marco Guerra (IMAGIN'ACT-SOCOMEC), Australian Henry Rupert, Spaniards Aina Bauza and Pep Costa (VSF Sports), Irish sailor Pamela Lee and Belgian Jonas Gerkens (Belgium Ocean Racing, Curium) round out the international contingent.
Class40 is also where most of the Guadeloupean skippers are found: Kéni Piperol, Ulysse Pozzoli (Earwen), Rodolphe Sepho (Rêve de large) and Yannick Rebuffat (Mussolo40). On the far side of the Atlantic, plenty of people are already looking forward to giving them a proper homecoming.
