Spectacular Start to the Route du Rhum

It was a picture-perfect start in bright Autumn sunshine off Saint Malo as the 115-boat fleet started the 3,542 nautical mile Route du Rhum – Destination Guadeloupe on Sunday 1st November at 1.02pm French time.

The fleet starts on a single line, separated out with the fastest multihulls, the giant Ultims and Ocean 50s, at the windward end, then the vintage monohulls and multihulls to leeward of them, then the 22-strong IMOCA fleet, and the Class 40s, the largest fleet of all with 49 boats and skippers, at the leeward end of the line.

Spectators lined the shores off Saint Malo, and also at the Cap Fréhel, where there is a gate in the course, before the fleet made their way down the Brittany coast and out into the North Atlantic on a broad reach.

Forecasts and weather routing options showed light winds in the Bay of Biscay, and the fleet as a whole is almost universally favouring the northern option to hook into the strong winds, closer to the Lizard point and the Isles of Scilly. This will see the sailors likely all passing to the north of the Azores on their passage to Guadeloupe in the Caribbean Sea.

In the 8-strong Ultim fleet it’s Tom Laperche on SVR-Lazartigue who is making the early running ahead of Armel Le Cleac’h on Maxi Banque Populaire XI, with the sailors taking their first north Atlantic gybe, while Charles Caudrelier on the radical new Gitana 18 is currently in fifth place, 25 nautical miles adrift of the leader.

Basile Bourgnon on Edenred 5 holds a slim lead over Pierre Quiroga on Wewise in the 10-strong Ocean 50 trimaran fleet with the skippers choosing a slightly more northerly route than the Ultims, with none of the sailors choosing to gybe yet.

Italian skipper Ambrogio Beccaria on Allagrande Mapei holds the lead in the IMOCA class, but Sam Goodchild on Macif Sante Prevoyance is just 3.5 nautical miles behind on the tracker and may well be ahead when the first gybe is completed. There are several new designs in the 22-strong IMOCA fleet, and this is the first real offshore test for some of these against those proven in the Vendée Globe, so it’ll we’ll be following this fleet with great interest as things play out.

Italy is also leading the Class 40 fleet, with Luca Rosetti on Maccaferri Futura leading Pierre Leboucher on Institut Imagine, but with 49 boats in the fleet it’s impossible to keep all bases covered and I have no doubt there will be regular places changes in this incredibly tight fleet.

We conclude today’s video with a bit more of the stunning footage from the start off Saint Malo for you to enjoy.