Ten boats, fifty feet of multihull apiece, and almost all of them with a genuine shot at the podium.
That is the story of the Ocean Fifty class heading into this year's Route du Rhum. Finishes in this fleet have become notoriously tight. At the last edition, Destination Guadeloupe, in 2022, only 18 minutes separated winner Erwan Le Roux from runner-up Quentin Vlamynck. A year ago, at the Transat Café L'Or, less than thirty minutes covered the top three duos: Baptiste Hulin and Thomas Rouxel, Pierre Quiroga and Gaston Morvan, and Luke Berry and Antoine Joubert.
Suspense from start to finish, in other words. Picking a clear favourite is close to impossible.
"The level has rarely been this high, with a fleet this dense," says Basile Bourgnon, skipper of Edenred. Thibaut Vauchel-Camus, on Solidaires en Peloton by Delanchy, agrees the fleet is "genuinely excellent". "There's a real diversity of profiles and a lot of talent. Because we race against each other so often in the Grands Prix, everyone knows their boat better, and that pushes the whole level up."
"There are so many variables to manage that making a prediction in this class is almost impossible," reckons Anne-Claire Le Berre, the first woman to race in Ocean Fifty, campaigning Upwind by Merconcept. Erwan Le Draoulec, aboard Lazare X Hellio, points to the class rules themselves. "The box rule is what keeps the fleet this even. We might be the only class where realistically all ten boats can fight for the podium or a top result."
One name keeps coming up when talk turns to favourites: Basile Bourgnon.
"If there's a favourite, it's him," says Le Draoulec. Erwan Le Roux, not racing this year for budget reasons but still watching closely, agrees, with a caveat. "Yes, he's the favourite, he won the Drheam Cup, but the racing will be much more open than that." Bourgnon himself is wary of the tag. "This race means a lot to me, it's the race I grew up dreaming about," he says, a nod to his father Laurent's wins in 1994 and 1998. "We've had a good campaign, a strong team, but that guarantees nothing once the race starts."
Bourgnon also flags a changing of the guard, pointing to "young sailors arriving with real hunger." Among them are Pierre Quiroga, 32, winner of the 2021 Solitaire du Figaro, now on Wewise; Baptiste Hulin, 29, runner-up in the Route des Terres Neuvas, aboard Viabilis; Le Draoulec himself, 29; and Léonard Legrand, 32, on Sodebo Fifty. "We'll see if these young guns are too bold or too cautious," Vauchel-Camus says, smiling.
Not quite a generational battle, though, according to Le Draoulec. "I don't think it'll be young against old, but we probably sail a little differently." He still remembers watching Vauchel-Camus and Le Roux race multihulls when he was coming up.
Le Roux, before pulling out, offered the sharpest read on what actually decides this race. "The other skippers aren't your rivals, they're your mates. Your real rival in this race is yourself. It's up to you to make the right calls at the right time, stay clear-headed, nail your strategy and make as few mistakes as possible."
That, more than boat speed, is likely to shape the Ocean Fifty podium this time round.
