The ten Ocean Fifty trimarans cast off at sunset on Saturday, and the pontoons erupted. Crowds lined the docks and the locks in greater numbers than ever, sending the fleet off with one last dose of pure energy less than 24 hours before Sunday's start.
If there were a trophy for best pontoon send-off, the Ocean Fifty class would be running away with it right now. Fans packed against the barriers, some lifelong supporters, others caught up for just the day, cheered the skippers on without needing to be asked twice.
"I've never experienced anything like this," said Pierre Quiroga (Wewise), smiling. "You can feel how passionate people are, there's an extraordinary public fervour. The Route du Rhum is a sailing event multiplied by 200." The race is already on every skipper's mind, but nobody wanted to miss this last moment of grace. "I've already got plenty of energy, but I'm going to take this extra boost and make the most of it," Quiroga added, watching spectators chant sailors' names before they'd even stepped aboard.
On neighbouring boats, Lazare's housemates were giving the mascot from Le Rire Médecin a run for its money. The charity's boat, skippered by Luke Berry, welcomed no fewer than 900 visitors aboard during the village days. "You can really see this positive atmosphere doing everyone good," said Berry (Le Rire Médecin Lamotte).
Mathieu Perraut (Elvest) had his own tale to tell. "I made a joke to the race direction ten days ago," he said, "telling them that if I could get 15 to 18 knots downwind at the start, that would be cool. That's exactly what we're going to get!" A fast start, then. Very fast. "We'll just need to go quicker than everyone else," Perraut said. "We all know the class, we all say we'll be sensible, but that's absolutely not true."
What comes after the start looks tougher again. "It feels like we're heading more towards Newfoundland than the Azores at this point," joked Luke Berry. The usual pre-race routing chatter has intensified over the past few hours, with unusual weather building in the middle of the Atlantic.
For now, that's a problem for later. As Quiroga put it, the skippers need to "put the blinkers on for these few minutes in the lock" before retreating back into their own bubble. At 1302 on Sunday, they'll head out solo aboard their machines, their last individual rendezvous of the season before solo racing returns on the horizon in 2028, when the Ocean Fifty class joins the Solitaire du Figaro.
