Some of the fastest, most experienced sailors on the start line at Saint-Malo on 1 November will be complete rookies when it comes to the Route du Rhum, Destination Guadeloupe. That is the quirk of this edition.
Tom Laperche, Anthony Marchand, Violette Dorange, Elodie Bonafous and Alexis Loison have between them circled the globe, won major races and battled the Southern Ocean. None of them has ever started this race. A few have never even crossed the Atlantic solo in competition at all.
Laperche, 29, skipper of SVR-Lazartigue, has already won the Solitaire du Figaro and taken on a solo round-the-world race aboard one of the biggest racing trimarans afloat. Yet he has never lined up for the Rhum, despite it being the very race that drew him into sailing as a boy. "I'm super happy to finally race this famous transat, especially in conditions like these," he said. "I have a fantastic team around me, a boat that's dialled in and that I know well. It's great to approach a race like this, one that I dreamed about as a kid. It really was the images of the Route du Rhum that made me want to sail offshore."
Anthony Marchand knows the feeling. Aboard Actual Ultim 4, the very boat Charles Caudrelier sailed to victory in the previous edition, he has already raced solo around the world in the Arkéa Ultim Challenge. Saint-Malo will still be a first for him. "We really are rookies," he said. "When I look at how many sailors already have huge mileage under their belt without having done the Rhum, I find that quite incredible. It's a reminder that a solo transat is no small thing."
Alexis Loison spent nineteen years focused almost entirely on the Figaro circuit, winning the Solitaire in 2025, before finally getting his shot at the Rhum. He will line up on a brand-new Class40, built to his own specifications. Remarkably, despite three Transat AG2R or Transat Paprec campaigns, two Transat Jacques Vabres and a Transat Québec-Saint-Malo, he has never crossed the Atlantic solo. "To this day, my counter is still at zero," he said, joking about his own "bac +19" of Figaro schooling. He has already shown form, winning the 40' Malouine, La Trinquette on his first competitive outing aboard Groupe REEL. "I want to set high goals," he said. "On a solo transat, things aren't written on paper. A lot can happen. So why not me?"
Violette Dorange, 25, has already completed a Vendée Globe, but this course is new territory. "I've never crossed the Atlantic this way before," said the Initiatives-Cœur skipper. "Until now I always had a waypoint at the Canaries. This time we'll stay further north, potentially towards the Azores, with strong wind for a good part of the crossing." Four years ago she was walking the pontoons at Saint-Malo chasing sponsors and funding for her Vendée Globe campaign. This time she is in the race itself, sailing under colours tasked with helping save twenty children.
Elodie Bonafous, racing Association Petits Princes, Quéguiner, has crossed the Atlantic before, but always doubled-handed. This will be her first truly solo crossing. She drew an amused parallel with Laperche. "When someone pointed out I was a rookie, I thought of him," she said. "I don't consider him a beginner at all, and I thought, ah yes, he's never done the Rhum either. Turns out there's quite a few of us in that position."
None of them start from zero. But when the fleet clears Saint-Malo's walls and turns for Guadeloupe, each will be facing something genuinely new, and that, more than any résumé, is what will be tested first.
