Seven of the eight Ultim trimarans squeezed through Saint-Malo's locks and into the Vauban basin on Monday, a delicate and spectacular manoeuvre carried out under clear skies on the eve of the Route du Rhum village opening its gates.
A hundred or so spectators gathered along the lock gates to watch, craning for a glimpse as the giant trimarans crept through one by one. "Dad, where are the boats?" one child asked, perched on a kerb on tiptoes. "They're coming!" his father replied. It was that kind of afternoon.
Guirec Soudée brought Liamm through first, without a hitch, and couldn't resist playing to the crowd. "We're coming into Saint-Malo, get ready!" he called out, grinning.
For some, the nerves were real. "I admit I was a bit worried about getting in," said Alexia Barrier, who skippers IDEC Sport-CIC and followed Soudée through the lock. The shore crews were tense too, eyes fixed on just how tight the gap really is.
"You couldn't get a Twingo through there," Soudée joked. Race director Francis Le Goff, watching the operation unfold, put it more plainly: "It's never simple, a lock, there are cargo ships and fishing boats coming through here too. But what makes it difficult here is the sheer size of the Ultims."
Most teams leaned heavily on experience gained four years ago, at the last edition of the race. "It's a fairly delicate manoeuvre we haven't done in four years, it's important to stay really focused," said Armel Le Cléac'h, skipper of Maxi Banque Populaire XI. Each boat had crew stationed on inflatables, others positioned either side of the locks and out on the floats themselves, all coordinated by radio while the helmsmen concentrated hard. Sodebo Ultim 3 alone carried seven aboard, including Thomas Coville and boat captain François Duguet. Spectators also spotted Franck Cammas aboard SVR Lazartigue, Sébastien Josse on Maxi Banque Populaire XI, and Benjamin Dutreux on Liamm.
Saint-Malo local Louis Burton, aboard Armand Thiery, was already tied up in the basin, having never left. The procession through the locks wrapped up with Tom Laperche on SVR Lazartigue and Charles Caudrelier on Maxi Edmond de Rothschild.
There was no missing the emotion beneath the concentration. This passage through the locks is one of the race's great symbolic moments, the point where preparation ends and a new chapter begins, with the start now just days away on Sunday 1 November.
Barrier broke into a little dance on the dock, smiling. "If you'd told me four years ago I'd be here in an Ultim, I wouldn't have believed you," Soudée said. Anthony Marchand was all smiles too: "It's brilliant to be here."
As the bridge lifted back into place, the crowd applauded each skipper warmly.
Tomorrow it's the turn of the Ocean Fifty fleet, the Vintage Multi boats and the IMOCAs to make their own entrance, with the village opening to the public from midday. For skippers and visitors alike, this is where the real build-up begins.
