Baptiste Hulin and Thomas Rouxel arrived in Martinique on Thursday to claim one of the most hard-fought victories in recent Ocean Fifty history, bringing Viabilis Oceans home first at Fort-de-France after a 4,700-mile battle that went down to the wire. The 17th edition of the Transat Café L'Or Le Havre Normandie concluded at 15:54 local time on 6 November, the pair recording a finishing time of 12 days, 5 hours, 24 minutes and 30 seconds from Le Havre. While the direct route implied an average of 16 knots, Viabilis Oceans actually sailed 5,709 miles at 19.5 knots, a reminder of just how far a trimaran will travel in pursuit of breeze.
The victory nearly didn't happen at all. On the race's opening night, Hulin and Rouxel were forced to divert to Roscoff to fix a torn mainsail, a delay that left them more than 100 miles behind the rest of the fleet before the real racing had properly begun. Rather than accept that deficit, the pair set about dismantling it mile by mile on the run south towards the Canaries, working back through the fleet until they were in genuine contention again by the Cape Verde Islands.
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Fortune offered a further opening mid-Atlantic when the early race leaders aboard Edenred suffered damage to their gennaker pole, handing Viabilis Oceans the front position. The final 350 miles proved anything but comfortable, though. Pierre Quiroga and Gaston Morvan on Wewise pushed through to lead again before lighter conditions pinned them close to the coast. Hulin and Rouxel chose a more southerly track where the breeze held firmer, and that call proved decisive. They crossed the line just five miles clear of Wewise, a margin that scarcely reflected the intensity of the duel.
At 28, Hulin already carries an impressive record, holding French match-racing and European youth titles before joining Louis Burton's BE Racing team in 2021. Since then he has added the Transat Jacques Vabre and the Route du Rhum to his experience. His crew partner Rouxel, 42, brings a depth of offshore multihull experience that few can match, most notably a stint co-skippering Sodebo Ultim 3 alongside Thomas Coville.
The trimaran beneath them is a boat with a storied past. The VPLP-designed machine was launched in 2017 under the name Ciela Village and later campaigned with considerable success by Sam Goodchild as Leyton before joining the BE Racing stable as Viabilis Oceans. For BE Racing and Viabilis Oceans, this transatlantic win represents the high point of a campaign built on determination, teamwork and trust.
As Hulin summed up mid-Atlantic, “We set off again 140 miles behind … now to be in the lead is fantastic.”
