Tom Laperche is closing in on Guadeloupe at the head of the Ultim fleet. Almost everywhere else in the Route du Rhum, skippers are still wrestling with a depression that refuses to let go.
Six days after the start from Saint-Malo, the fleet is living two entirely different races. For Laperche, it is about the final miles. For most of the rest, the question is simpler and more painful: how much longer will this weather punish them?
Laperche, aboard the 32-metre trimaran SVR-Lazartigue, is under 300 miles from the finish and expected across the line in the middle of the coming night, Paris time. It has not been a straightforward approach to the Caribbean. Deprived of the trade winds, the young skipper from Morbihan has had to deal with a near head-on south-westerly, on a track that could carry him close to Montserrat and Antigua. That is a tricky configuration for reaching the archipelago, though it could make life easier once he has rounded Tête à l'Anglais for the final stretch to Pointe-à-Pitre.
"I'm watching closely all the tacks we'll have to do, the wind effects around the islands, the buoy passages. We'll need to be precise. We're upwind, with the wind almost on the nose, so it promises to be pretty physical right to the end," Laperche said. Having worked his way through the light patches of the tropical depression the day before, he found his pace again, with gusts touching 25 knots in recent hours. That has not tempted him into taking risks. "The wind is very unstable. We regularly get squalls with gusts to 30 knots, while in between we're down to 15 or 20. If we put up all the sail, it gets a bit scary when it builds. We're not here to do anything stupid."
Fishing gear, often poorly marked, is another concern. He has made a point of sleeping ahead of this final stretch. "You have to arrive sharp enough. On these big boats, when you're exhausted, you make mistakes quickly and it costs double the energy afterwards. It's a vicious circle. So whatever rest we can get, we have to take it."
Further back, the picture is grimmer. In Ocean Fifty, Basile Bourgnon (Edenred) leads by over a hundred miles, with Thibaut Vauchel-Camus (Solidaire En Peloton by Delanchy) locked together with Pierre Quiroga (Wewise), Léonard Legrand (Sodebo Fifty) and Baptiste Hulin (Viabilis Oceans) behind him. "The rodeo never ends," said Vauchel-Camus, who hails from Saint-Malo. A new squally front is forecast for those further west, with the wind swinging east and building to around 30 knots.
In IMOCA, Corentin Horeau (MACSF) has held a commanding lead for three days, some 265 miles ahead of his closest rival, despite a rough night. "The hatch ripped off and the sail locker filled with water. I spent two hours bailing it all out! I was incredibly lucky, I found the hatch jammed in the guardrails at the back. I glued it back on, but I still can't get the boat moving the way I want. It's not the best night," Horeau said. He kept his sense of humour regardless: "It's part of the game, one headache a day!"
There was also news of Jérémie Beyou (Charal), forced to retire on medical grounds on Tuesday. Examinations in the Azores on Friday confirmed a head injury along with several vertebral and rib fractures. He is due to be repatriated to France this weekend.
In the Class40 fleet, a deep low-pressure system of 900 hPa is grinding the frontrunners down. Guillaume Pirouelle (Sogestran – Seafrigo) and Achille Nebout (Amarris) are jostling at the head of the class, but both report brutal conditions. "I'm getting pretty fed up with this depression! We've just crossed the front, the wind has turned and it's slamming a lot harder. Yesterday we had 40 to 45 knots sustained, when it was already forecast to be strong. Now there's less than announced, so we don't even know what sail configuration to run," Pirouelle said. He is hoping for more manageable conditions during the day but is not hiding his exhaustion. "I'm running on empty. I've barely slept. As soon as we manage to close our eyes, a jolt wakes us up. Mentally, all this noise and constant worry is draining. I'm very happy with my race, but I also know a wave taken too hard could stop everything."
Nebout described similar punishment aboard Amarris. "Slaps at 40, 43 knots, squalls, a lot of instability in the wind. We're constantly adjusting so the boat doesn't slam too hard. And above all there's this fear that at the bottom of every wave something will break. It's exhausting, exhausting, exhausting. Really wild! It's not easy to sleep, not easy to eat, not easy to do anything, really."
The Class40 fleet has split into two camps tactically. The current leaders, to the south, chose to sail upwind to skirt the worst of the weather, while a northern group led by Luca Rosetti (Maccaferri Futura) tried to punch through the centre of the system to reach favourable angles sooner. The southern boats covered about a hundred miles in ten hours, against just 25 for the northern group, slowed by light wind, though the northerners also let the worst of the bad weather pass ahead of them. A ridge of high pressure forecast for Sunday could flip the current order again, swapping the excess of wind for a drought of barely ten knots.
In Rhum Mono, Tanguy Caradec (Eurvad) spent much of the night helmeted up, shifting between the chart table and a small spot under the cockpit canopy, ready to handle the lines. "It's a bit of a building site, there's stuff everywhere! I think we've got through the worst of it. We're back under 30 knots, but I had gusts to 47 and surfs at 22 to 25 knots in a built-up sea. The pilot did a good job," Caradec said. Despite the violent conditions, he has no intention of easing off. "You have to be careful, but still move fast through the waves. It's not always easy to find the right balance. Now I need to get some rest. As for what comes next, we'll see, we're still in a fairly strong flow and I don't have all the answers yet."
Titouan Pilliard (Use It Again for Youth), eighth in the same class, has a different problem. After hours of work with his shore team, he plugged a leak, but the water ingress knocked out all his electronics, leaving him without power, navigation instruments or autopilot. That is a serious blow for the fleet's youngest sailor, who still has a long way to go.
Only the Rhum Multi leaders, Éric Péron (French Touch – Oceania Hôtels) and Damien Seguin (Arkea – Handicap International), have largely escaped the Azores weather trap that continues to drag on the rest of that fleet. Speed and positioning gaps are making the rankings hard to read as the system shifts along with part of the fleet.
Sixteen of the 115 starters have now retired, six days after the start.
Laperche is preparing for his arrival in Pointe-à-Pitre. Most of the rest of the fleet is still waiting for the Atlantic to turn the volume down.
