Saint-Malo's storm couldn't keep the crowds away. Bad weather forced the Route du Rhum village to close, but by Saturday afternoon the gates reopened to queues forming in the rain, proof that neither skippers nor spectators here are easily put off by weather.
Entertainment, meet-and-greets and Caribbean music filled the reopened village, that distinctive mix of land and sea this race has always managed to conjure. For almost 50 years the Route du Rhum has held sailors in its spell, a race across the Atlantic that competitors dream of from childhood. On the morning of the start, it's not just the sheet knots that tighten. Stomachs do too, skippers and spectators alike.
The fortnight before the start is when the real ritual happens. People come to talk, to admire, to take a thousand photos of boats as beautiful as they are intimidating, and above all, to pick a favourite.
Daniel had dug out the beanie and jacket he bought as souvenirs from a previous edition while waiting for the doors to open. "1994, the year Laurent Bourgnon won, I picked the right year!" Bourgnon's name comes up constantly near his son Basile's Ocean Fifty, which naturally draws a crowd of its own. "His father was gifted, but he's got talent too," one onlooker said. Alongside Bourgnon senior, names like Mike Birch, Loïck Peyron and Florence Arthaud are etched into the race's history and its roll of honour. Some visitors remember spotting them wandering the village in years past. "That's the magic of this place, you can walk past the skippers or find yourself at the next table while they're having a beer at the brasserie in the evening." Hubert recalls once raising a glass with one of those champions. "You don't always dare go up to them, they're quite something, these guys."
"For an exceptional race, you need an exceptional village," said Joseph Bizard, director general of OC Sport, smiling as he said it. "It's the promise of discovering these boats, these sailors, and the extraordinary story of a race that's unique in the world."
Families and kids leave the stands clutching stickers and small giveaways, but it's along the pontoons where people really linger. "From the old town you can see the masts above the ramparts, but I didn't think you could get this close to the boats," said Annick, gazing at the new ULTIM class creation, Gitana 18. Down on the maxi-trimaran pontoon, the wonder hasn't worn off. "Is there really only one man on there? Seems a bit much for him, doesn't it?" joked Marie, scanning SVR Lazartigue for a glimpse of Tom Laperche.
Laperche, 29, was on that very blue trimaran recalling the days he stood on these same pontoons cheering his father on at the 2010 start. "When I was little, I wanted to do it in an Optimist. Laurent Bourgnon, a family friend, had to tell me that wasn't going to happen," he laughed. "But it really was the Route du Rhum that gave me the taste for offshore racing."
Charles Caudrelier has gone from dreaming behind the barriers to standing on the top step of the podium, and for him it comes down to a single image. "There's one picture that always comes back to me with the same clarity," said the Gitana 18 skipper. "Laurent Bourgnon rounding Cap Fréhel, the main hull lifting, the float up in the air. The Route du Rhum is what switched something on in me, that strong urge to do this sport."
Violette Dorange, by contrast, is a first-timer. "It's a new course, new rivals," said the young Initiatives Coeur sailor, a clear favourite with the crowds. "I've never started a race with this many boats on the line. I'm also going to discover Saint-Malo itself, which I barely know." Another newcomer, this time in the multihull fleet, is Erwan Le Draoulec, who found his calling walking past the Orma trimarans, those 18-metre boats making a big comeback this year in the Vintage Multi category. "Those are the boats that made me dream, the very ones I used to build in wood with my grandfather in his workshop."
It's categories like Vintage Mono and Vintage Multi that give the Route du Rhum its particular character, boats and sailors carrying as many stories between them as there are rum blends in Guadeloupe.
Rum, fittingly, is often the last drink shared by tradition at the Bar de l'Univers the night before the start. Familiar faces turn up there too. People still recall seeing Titouan Lamazou and Philippe Monnet at that bar, an unshakeable tradition, one last gathering on dry land before everyone meets again on the other side of the Atlantic. The only question left is who will be first to welcome the other home on the finish pontoon.
