Beanies and thick socks were the order of the day from 5am this morning as the final boats made their way out of Saint-Malo. The Ultims left on Friday, the IMOCAs and Ocean Fiftys followed yesterday, and that left seventy boats still waiting for their ticket offshore.
Four lock gates worked in sequence to release the Class40s, Vintage Monos and Multis out to sea. After the quieter farewells on the pontoons, each fleet got its turn in front of a fervent crowd, people who had turned up as if for the after-party of a fortnight-long festival. Emotion done with, now it is down to racing. A hundred and fifteen skippers are bound for Pointe-à-Pitre.
Few could say, like Corentin Douguet (SNSM Faites un don!), that they "made the most of seven hours' unbroken sleep in a proper bed." On the pontoons, rookies and seasoned offshore hands alike admitted to waking well before the alarm. For Sasha Lanièce (Alderan) it was "a question of stress." For David Sineau (Ekinox Réthorès), "noise along the Sillon." For Fabien Delahaye (Legallais), it was simply what was at stake: "It's the end of a four-year cycle built around the Route du Rhum. You put pressure on yourself because you don't want to miss it, it's THE great race, the one every sailor dreams about."
Loïc Féquet (Funae), who has already sailed the race in an Ocean Fifty and returns this year at the helm of an older-generation Class40, a "pointu", knows how lucky he is with conditions this benign. He put it plainly as he pulled on his wet-weather gear: "Back in 2018 I had to deal with three depressions in a row, that was far harder than setting off in conditions like these. We should reach the Azores quickly, and even if we pick up wind there it'll be in milder temperatures. It's genuinely nice to look ahead to a scenario like this." Douguet agreed: "It's quite an unusual Route du Rhum, downwind early on and upwind at the finish. That's the nature of a race with a fixed start date. It's not about records."
Unlike the big multihulls, or even the IMOCAs, the Class40 fleet cannot script the whole crossing, likely to take between 12 and 14 days. "I'm not thinking about the finish, just doing things properly every day with as few mistakes as possible," said Pep Costa (VSF Sports). "Routes will open up later, you have to be opportunistic, but I'm not looking too far ahead."
Is that uncertain second week after the Azores more uncomfortable for the favourites, the ones with the most to lose? "The hard part is being out front, showing the way and falling into the traps," said Guillaume Pirouelle of Sogestran SeaFrigo, winner of the Transat Café l'Or and the man to beat in 2026, with a wink. "But I'd still rather be in that position than the other one."
The first lock gate closed again at 6.30am as the sun rose over Saint-Malo. In the Dugay Trouin basin, the Vintage Monos faced their own round of pre-start interviews. A crowd gathered around Tanguy Caradec (Eurvad), who has dedicated this Route du Rhum to family and held his daughters close before departure. "I'm calm about the weather but anxious about the bottleneck at Cap Fréhel. The rule is simple, don't break anything. I want my girls to share this race with me and be proud of their dad before we meet again on a beach in the Antilles."
Jean Le Cam, known to all as "Le Roi Jean", greeted well-wishers on the still-damp teak deck of Alegria as though setting off on his first Route du Rhum rather than his latest. "I've packed three weeks of food. I'm heading off on an adventure. My boat is one of the slowest in the fleet, so there's zero pressure."
Caution ruled too among the small wooden trimarans of the Vintage Multi class, last to leave at around eight o'clock. The downwind start suits them fine, but the prospect of a decent depression near the Azores does not sit well with fleet elder Charlie Capelle (ACapella-Proludic-La chaîne de l'espoir). "Christian (Dumard) is routing me, he's very cautious, he knows my boat, the polars. I'm the smallest in the fleet, I'm not here to race. This is my seventh Rhum, I just need to get to the other side. I'm aiming for the trade winds, even if it means going further south to get there."
