Thibaut Vauchel-Camus wasn't due to check in this morning. But after missing his call-in slot yesterday, the skipper of the Ocean Fifty Solidaires en Peloton by Delanchy rang through anyway, and what followed was one of those rare, unhurried conversations that cut to the heart of why sailors do this.
He's currently sitting in the top three of the Ocean Fifty battle in the Route du Rhum, Destination Guadeloupe.
The plan was set before he even left the dock, worked out with his routers. "We said to ourselves that in pure speed we weren't going to manage to come back on Basile," Thibaut explained. The four-boat pack, Baptiste Hulin on Viabilis Oceans, Pierre Quiroga on WeWise and Léonard Legrand on Sodebo Fifty, were holding tight together. "We had to play a different trajectory."
Shifting further west didn't deliver quite the result he'd banked on. "The little mates who stayed to the east had a happier exit from the ridge than me." Frustrating, but not demoralising. "Once it's done, it's done. You look ahead and work out how to make the most of your position."
Further south, rivals eased off after Matthieu Perraut capsized on Elvest nearby, understandably rattled. Thibaut used the gap to push hard again. "It was pretty impressive but not stressful, because the boat was behaving very well, so I'm happy. Now I've calmed things down a bit to manage what's ahead and get some rest. The race isn't over."
Solidaires had drifted from the fleet for a time, then rejoined the leading group, sitting second at the time of the call. Neck and neck with Quiroga and Legrand, the podium remains wide open with the weather still unsettled. "The night was pretty impressive. We're enjoying the light this morning even if the sky is grey."
The cause was a tropical depression north of the Antilles that he sailed straight through. "It was moving very fast, with wind we were dreading being quite strong. I sometimes found myself under-canvassed, copping accelerations and decelerations. It shakes you around enormously, it was very uncomfortable, but the night's balance sheet is positive."
Next up, in his words, is switching from "wild boar mode" to "dragonfly mode" as the fleet runs into very light airs, where trajectory finesse will matter more than raw pace.
Top spot still looks out of reach, though, with Basile Bourgnon relentless aboard Edenred. Thibaut has a nickname for him: Basilix, a nod to Obelix's appetite for wild boar. "He's charming, yes, but a bit annoying, this young man," Thibaut joked. "If he wants to follow in his father's footsteps, he'll need to do as he did. Laurent didn't win the Rhum on his first attempt, so he can wait."
Rivals they may be, but the Ocean Fifty skippers have a habit of setting competition aside when risk outweighs the thrill of racing. "During the night I got a message from Basile, who was at least five hours ahead of me, telling me: it's rough, I've got gusts over 40 knots, be careful. I hadn't had that wind yet myself. It's really decent of him to warn us to stay alert."
More than rivals. Mates, really.
"To think that in our sport our competitors are also our partners, people we share something unique with, that's a remarkable thing to experience," Thibaut said. The bond has been forged over thousands of miles between the eleven sailors of the Ocean Fifty class, and it hints at a great rivalry and a fine story still to come in 2028, when the class takes on the new format of the Solitaire du Figaro.
For now, Guadeloupe waits. Basile will likely be first to greet the others in. "If he warned me last night, it's also because he wants to see his mates to share a drink with at the finish, and he doesn't want us stopping off at the Azores," Thibaut concluded, before hanging up to get back to his watch, just as eager himself to savour a ti'punch in a few days' time.
