Nine days after the fleet left Saint-Malo in the Route du Rhum, Destination Guadeloupe 2026, Basile Bourgnon leads the Ocean Fifty class into a final approach to Guadeloupe that has turned into a crawl through light winds.
The depression driving the Atlantic weather is finally moving off to the east, but there is no real respite. A fresh disturbance is already arriving from the west, keeping conditions unsettled for the fleets still at sea.
For the Class40s, still spread thin across the ocean, this run of weather systems is producing wildly different conditions from boat to boat. Some crews are wrestling with sudden wind shifts. Others have simply stopped, parked in zones of calm.
The question now is whether the light winds will scramble the finishing order among the Ocean Fifty trimarans, and whether they will also slow the IMOCAs as they close in on the Antilles. For the Class40 fleet, the challenge is different again: punch through a new front, then cross a ridge of high pressure, all while sailing on a sea still lumpy and disturbed from what came before.
Cyril Wuest, meteorologist at METEO CONSULT, the official weather partner of the Route du Rhum, Destination Guadeloupe 2026, broke down the conditions and the strategic stakes facing competitors from Tuesday through to Thursday.
