Nearly thirty years after Laurent Bourgnon won the Route du Rhum for the second time, his son has made the race a family story once more. Basile Bourgnon, 24, has won the event at his first attempt as skipper of Edenred, a result that instantly revives memories of his father's victories in 1994 and 1998.
Bourgnon is a force of nature by all accounts, an outstanding racer with a personality that draws people in. He showed as much from the very start.
At the start village in Saint-Malo, competing for the first time, he allowed himself a few late nights enjoying the local atmosphere. A few days before the start he took two days off the coast of Ouistreham to go sea fishing with a mate. Once racing, he kept that same easy confidence even as brutal conditions battered the fleet on an unusually demanding course.
Last Wednesday, with another depression closing in, Bourgnon put it simply: "We're going to have to adapt once more. But isn't that exactly what we signed up for with the Route du Rhum? I think so. It's hard, it's demanding, but we're having a great time."
In the days before the start, the Edenred skipper had spoken about his relationship with the open ocean. "When I'm at sea, I feel like I'm in my element. It's kind of like home." That grounding carried him through a tropical depression, a sail breakage, and the late charge of his rivals, which kept the finish in genuine suspense right to the end.
There were softer moments too. One video showed him in tears, overcome with emotion as he congratulated his mate Tom Laperche.
Bourgnon also showed the kind of solidarity that runs deep in the Ocean Fifty class. Three days out, Thibaut Vauchel-Camus, skipper of Solidaires en Peloton by Delanchy and his closest rival on the water, received a message from him mid-race. "He told me: it's rough out here, I've got gusts over 40 knots, be careful," Vauchel-Camus recalled. A brief radio exchange, but it captured exactly who Bourgnon is: rival and mate at once, a fierce competitor and a genuinely accomplished sailor. "Basile? He's Basilix! Like Obelix, you get the feeling he's eaten a lot of wild boar."
Edenred has backed Bourgnon since his Mini days, and alongside Emmanuel Le Roch he has grown from promising talent into a winner. He knows this victory will reopen comparisons with his father. "I can't deny the history, it's mine too," he said before the start. He was too young to have witnessed Laurent's wins firsthand. "I learned about his career after he passed. Even if he hadn't been my father, I would have admired him as a sportsman. He was ahead of his time in so many ways."
Laurent Bourgnon was an unconventional, inventive, forward-thinking skipper, one of the first to take physical preparation seriously and to work relentlessly on optimising his boats. He was also a giant of a man who clearly loved the fight, standing on a float, pushing his Orma trimarans to their absolute limits. Laurent remains the only two-time outright winner of the Route du Rhum, in 1994 and 1998, having first finished on the podium back in 1990. His son has now gone one better: first attempt, first win.
There is a lot of Laurent in Basile, in his build, his gestures, even his words. As a tribute, Basile climbed Edenred's mast during the race to take a photo identical to one his father once took. But the real inheritance runs deeper than sailing technique or boat feel. Laurent taught him to see things through to the end, and to hold himself to a higher standard than he holds anyone else.
"I wasn't at school for long, but I was lucky enough to be self-taught, to learn from what I see," Bourgnon said. "The greatest quality he passed on to me is the ability to adapt to any situation."
He proved that across the entire race, right through to a win that will warm plenty of hearts. Once again it's a sailor from La Trinité-sur-Mer taking the honours, following Tom Laperche, 29, and Corentin Horeau, 37, two rivals he kept crossing paths with on the pontoons. At 24, Bourgnon has the whole future ahead of him, and for those who follow the sport closely, that might be the best part of this story yet.
Basile Bourgnon's record: 12th in the 2019 Transat Jacques-Vabre, 18th in the 2021 Mini-Transat, 2nd in the 2023 Solitaire du Figaro, 10th in the 2023 Transat Jacques-Vabre, 5th in the 2025 Transat Café L'Or, and winner of the 2026 Route du Rhum - Destination Guadeloupe.
