Pierre Quiroga has sealed third place in the Ocean Fifty class at the Route du Rhum, Destination Guadeloupe, crossing the line in Pointe-à-Pitre after a scrap with rivals that lasted until the finish.
The Wewise skipper finished in 10 days, 1 hour and 24 minutes, some 8 hours and 14 minutes behind race winner Basile Bourgnon on Edenred. It marks Quiroga's third podium finish in his last three transatlantic races in the Ocean Fifty class.
His finish time in Pointe-à-Pitre was 09:26, or 14:26 in Paris, giving an elapsed race time of 10 days, 1 hour, 24 minutes and 52 seconds and a gap to the class leader of 8 hours, 14 minutes and 29 seconds. Quiroga covered 4,063.76 miles at a real average speed of 16.83 knots, against a theoretical great-circle average of 14.62 knots over the 3,542 miles separating Saint-Malo from Pointe-à-Pitre.
Quiroga has built his career on patiently sharpening every skill needed to compete at the top level. He came up through Olympic sailing at the Pôle France in Marseille and match racing before moving into Figaro, where he joined an exclusive club: winners of the Solitaire du Figaro, a title he claimed in 2021.
A complete skipper and sharp tactician, he's part of the new wave lifting the overall standard in Ocean Fifty. In just three years he's already banked two podiums at the Transat Café L'Or, third in 2023 and second in 2025.
His Route du Rhum start was close to perfect, holding third place as the fleet gybed off southwest Ireland.
Bourgnon then pulled clear, but Quiroga found himself locked in a running battle north of the Azores with Baptiste Hulin on Viabilis Océans, Léonard Legrand on Sodebo Fifty and Thibaut Vauchel-Camus on Solidaires en Peloton by Delanchy. Like the rest of the fleet, he had to deal with a tropical depression, erratic winds in the closing stages and the grinding fatigue that comes with it.
On the Monday before finishing, he spoke of his troubles: a small missing piece of daggerboard, the big gennaker lost overboard, and a J2 that had been unusable since day three. "There weren't many enjoyable moments in this transatlantic, so I used the lull to rest and listen to a bit of music," he said, watching the sunset.
It was, by his own account, a race where nothing came easily. Quiroga banked another podium regardless, cementing his place as one of the genuine frontrunners in Ocean Fifty.
