Martinique was deep into its evening when SVR-Lazartigue crossed the finish line in Fort-de-France at 22:13:58 local time on 5 November 2025, completing one of ocean racing's great double acts. At the helm were Tom Laperche, 28, and Franck Cammas, 52, two sailors separated by a generation but united by a blue foiling trimaran and a shared hunger to conquer the ULTIM division of the Transat Café L'OR Le Havre Normandie. The race bills itself as the world's longest and arguably most demanding double-handed transatlantic contest, and nothing about this edition suggested that reputation was overstated.
The course runs 6,670 nautical miles from Le Havre to Martinique, routing via the remote Saint Peter and Saint Paul islets. Laperche and Cammas covered it in 10 days, 13 hours, 3 minutes, and 58 seconds, sailing 6,490 miles at an average of 25.65 knots. Those numbers speak to relentless, exacting speed management across every mood the Atlantic could throw at a trimaran the size of a small apartment block.
From the first hours out of Le Havre, SVR-Lazartigue moved with authority. The defending champions, Armel Le Cléac'h and Sébastien Josse, were among those expected to provide the sternest resistance, but rudder damage forced their boat, Banque Populaire XI, into a pit stop in Lorient, removing them from contention before the race had properly begun. Sodebo Ultim 3 and Actual Ultim 4 tested SVR-Lazartigue through the Bay of Biscay, but the French-Swiss pairing shook them off and built a lead that would prove unassailable.
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The Doldrums, that notoriously fickle equatorial band where wind evaporates and races are routinely redrawn, proved the decisive passage. SVR-Lazartigue was first in and, critically, first out. After clearing that stretch, the margin over the rest of the fleet grew with every mile south, and by the time Martinique came into view there was nothing left to decide.
For Laperche, the finish line represented the end of a long wait. He had reached the podium twice before, finishing runner-up in both 2021 and 2023, but the outright win had stayed just out of reach. This victory changes that story entirely, confirming his standing as one of the most compelling talents to emerge in offshore racing in recent years.
Cammas arrives at every race with a résumé that already seems complete, yet he keeps finding ways to extend it. Victories in 2001, 2003, 2007, and 2021 had already made him the most successful sailor in the race's history. Adding 2025 to that list makes him the first person ever to win the Transat Café L'OR five times, in a race that has now been running for 32 years. It is a record built across more than two decades of the sport's evolution, from conventional ocean racers to the foiling multihulls that define the modern era.
"It's a special victory," Cammas said after the finish. "To share it with Tom, and to see SVR-Lazartigue finally fulfil its potential, is hugely satisfying."
The race was first held in 1993, conceived as a transatlantic link between the French Channel coast and the Caribbean islands where so much of the world's coffee is grown. Organised with JDE Peet's and the city of Le Havre, it has always positioned itself around values of sustainability, accessibility, and adventure, seeking to capture both the endurance side of offshore sailing and the technical innovation that makes the ULTIM class so extraordinary to watch.
SVR-Lazartigue was launched in 2021, the same year Cammas claimed his fourth title. It has taken until now for the trimaran to fulfil what its designers imagined for it. As sunrise spread across Martinique the morning after the finish, that promise felt very thoroughly kept.
