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Battle of the giants: The inside story of the Brest Atlantiques Race

• Helen Fretter
• February 19, 2020

The first big ocean test for the Ultime trimarans broke new ground. Helen Fretter talked to the skippers to find out why

Photo: Alexis Courcoux / Brest Atlantiques

On Tuesday 5 November four giant trimarans – Maxi Edmond de Rothschild , Macif , Sodebo and Actual Leader , and their double-handed crews – left a grey and sodden Brest on Brittany’s most westerly tip. They were two days later than planned after a North Atlantic storm created monstrous 8m seas in Biscay , and hurtled out under triple-reefed mainsails and bare forestays. But still the leaders passed Madeira by Thursday morning and the Canaries by teatime that same day.

The Cape Verdes whistled past their port bow late on Friday night. Then, after crossing the breadth of the Atlantic in less than a weekend, Maxi Edmond de Rothschild was first to arrive at Recife, Brazil, in time for breakfast on Monday.

And so it went on: Franck Cammas and Charles Caudrelier on Maxi Edmond de Rothschild sailed from Rio to Cape Town – the entire South Atlantic leg, diving down to 43°S – in six days. Only when you plot their track around the vast expanses of the Atlantic Ocean do the incomprehensible speeds the newest foiling trimarans travel at become real.

Photo: Yvan Zedda

Not until the northbound return stage did they slow down: after rounding Robben Island off Cape Town to port, the next mark of the course was the finish at Brest, necessitating a climb past Namibian shores at mere 20-knot averages before skirting the St Helena High. By the finish, the Ultimes will likely have sailed some 14,000 miles around the Atlantic Ocean in fewer than 30 days.

The Brest Atlantiques Race was borne out of the crumpled carbon of the 2018 Route du Rhum , which had been hotly anticipated as the first transatlantic contest for the trimarans, but turned instead into a demolition derby.

Banque Populaire capsized, broke up, and was ultimately written off. The Gitana stable’s Maxi Edmond de Rothschild had a whole bow section ripped clean off. The newly foiling Macif limped to the finish missing one rudder and one foil, only to be beaten by Francis Joyon ’s 12-year-old IDEC Sport , right on the finish line.

Article continues below…

Trying to break the 40-day barrier: Thomas Coville and the most radical Ultime yet

This week solo yachtsman Thomas Coville opened the doors to the build of his Sodebo Ultim 3, the newest Ultime…

Fastnet record falls to Maxi Edmond de Rothschild as Ultimes finish 1 minute apart

Before the start of this year’s Rolex Fastnet Race it was far from clear that the race record for the…

The much feted Ultimes were clearly nowhere near ready for the single-handed around the world ‘Brest Oceans Race’, originally due to start in December 2019. Heads were put together and a new calendar was unveiled, building up to a crewed around the world race in 2021 and a solo in 2023. But first was a new concept, a double-handed looping course around the Atlantic.

A battle of men

Besides being the first big ocean contest for the Ultimes, the Brest Atlantiques Race breaks ground in several ways. It is double-handed, but each boat has a media crewmember on board. Their daily videos have captured life on these extreme machines in a way that we’ve never seen before – the howling background noise, the sheer difficulty in moving around.

The course veers from the path most travelled. While the eastbound course from Europe to Brazil and the Atlantic loop from South America to the Cape of Good Hope are well practised segments of any around the world course, the return leg – turn left at Cape Town, then head north or north-east – is much rarer.

Also unique is the length of the competition: at one month it is not the exhausting sprint of a transatlantic race, nor is it quite as gruelling as a full around the world loop. Pacing it was always going to be a challenge.

But racing Ultimes is not really about pacing over days, weeks or months. It is about what happens in microseconds, the tiny fractions of margin which these skippers must operate within to avoid errors, when errors could potentially see them cartwheeling a 100ft, €10m trimaran. Even among the superhuman world of short-handed racing, the Ultime skippers are dicing with incomprehensible levels of risk.

The helming position on Sodebo has small windshields but is still exposed to the elements. Photo: Martin Keruzoré

“The mode we sail these boats in is almost like an ORMA 60 mode,” explained Cammas, who sailed the notoriously tender ORMA trimarans during the early 2000s. “You are on the sheet to release quickly, and you have to stay on the sheet all the time. When you are on the limit you have less than a second to react.”

Every skipper said that the most dangerous moments in these giant trimarans are sudden changes of wind speed and direction – just the type of conditions you get in mid-Atlantic squalls.

With risk, comes stress. The boats themselves are deceptively reassuring, Caudrelier explained before the race. “It’s like comparing an old car with a new car, you go faster in a new car but you also have better brakes, you are more protected in case of a crash, the tyres are better. So the boats feel quite safe, it is very impressive. We were going 25, 26, 27 knots upwind in big 4m waves, and it was comfortable.

“But the hardest thing is the tension. Whenever you are on a multihull, you are thinking: if I am late, if I don’t anticipate, if I make a mistake, I am going to capsize. There is so much power that if you make a mistake there is no escape.”

The boats simply do not compare to even ocean monohulls. “You make a small mistake – and you have 70 tonnes in the mainsail, which would be two or three tonnes in the Volvo 65s. It’s 160 tonnes righting moment.”

The stress is exacerbated by the constant noise and violent motion. Sodebo , with her cockpit area forward of the mast, is even noisier. Co-skippers Thomas Coville and Jean Luc Nélias wear ear defenders to rest. They started the race in rugby helmets and have a monkey bar rack of handholds in the roof to move around.

Thomas Coville was working to repair his damaged float shortly before the aft section ripped away. Photo: Martin Keruzoré

“You have to just learn how to accept the noise and how to make it something normal. It’s like the speed – we have already pushed until we accept the speed going from 30 knots to 40. Now 40 knots is just normal,” commented Coville.

But in these boats, danger can present itself in the most extraordinary ways. In the South Atlantic, Sodebo hit what Coville believes was a whale. The impact was strong enough to break off the starboard rudder, and caused so much damage that the aft section of the starboard float filled with water and later also broke away.

Although the boat was able to continue sailing, even foiling, with the truncated float, Coville revealed in Cape Town that it could have been disastrous: “A few hours before, I was inside trying to seal it, and I could have left with the piece that broke away, so I was lucky on that one.”

Photo: Martin Keruzoré

Contest of machines

Up close, the Ultimes are surprisingly agricultural. Everything is on such a giant scale that it looks like some piece of industrial machinery. The constant modifications are often visible through patched sections – paint and filler are heavy, and so used sparingly.

On Coville’s Sodebo , to achieve an aerodynamically efficient end-plating on the mainsail, the underside of the boom is swathed in black tarpaulin-like panels. The overall effect is curiously Heath Robinson. The Ultimate Class 32/23 box rule is relatively unrestricted, and within its rough dimensions, a maximum of 32m long, 23m wide (104/75ft), the teams have adopted different design solutions. Each boat is also at a different stage of development.

Sodebo does not yet have a T-foil central daggerboard, nor elevator flaps on her rudders (factors that Coville says should give the boat a further 25% performance gain). Meanwhile Maxi Edmond de Rothschild has T-foils on both the central daggerboard and rudder, and huge transom hung rudders, with flaps on the trailing edges, housed in giant protective casings.

The Ultime box rule specifies maximum dimensions of 32m LOA and 23m beam

But beneath the roughly faired surfaces the Ultimes are riddled with technology. The Maxi Edmond de Rothschild has over 500 load sensors on board, creating terabytes of data. In this race shore teams are allowed to monitor and process this data – and discuss it with the sailors.

“We set up a whole alarm system back at the base, and I will also receive messages on my phone, saying the boat is overbearing on that sensor. So I can wake up and tell [the crew], if they haven’t seen it, to be careful,” explained Gitana team project manager, Sébastien Simon.

“Our aim is to prevent the problems. Sometimes they’ll have the feeling that the boat is just slamming and they’ll maybe slow down, and actually if it’s OK for them physically, they can go faster. Or sometimes if the alarms are going on all the time – obviously I have some margins on those alarms, and I’ll be telling them, OK you can go a little bit more that way.”

Maxi Edmond de Rothschild captured by drone mid-Atlantic. Photo: Alexis Courcoux/Brest Atlantiques

During the Brest Atlantiques the skippers are also allowed to use weather routing, and Simon will liaise with team weather guru Marcel von Triest throughout the race as they decide how much stress to put the boat under. Surprisingly, there is no absolute rule of whether the skipper’s intuition or the inarguable neon numbers on the display take precedent. “I have no idea. Maybe it’s 50:50?” pondered Gabart.

“For sure we have a lot of numbers, and we know what is the good and safe configuration with the wind speed and angle. But when you are right on the peak this is the moment where the feeling is more important than the numbers,” explained Cammas. Technical monitoring, weather routing and sailing double-handed means the Ultimes can be sailed to a very high percentage of their potential performance.

“It’s not like a solo race because we can helm a lot, this is good because we can really push the boat,” said Cammas. “The gain you make [by helming] depends on conditions, but sometimes you gain 5%, and if your speed is around 40 that’s a lot. VMG downwind at 20-25 knot wind speeds, for example, is the place where it’s really important to steer.”

Cammas and Caudrelier are old friends, now sailing together on Maxi Edmond de Rothschild

Helming by hand to maintain maximised flight time is key. “We will be flying more than 50% of the time,” commented Gabart pre-start. “We – certainly Gitana and Macif – will be the sailors that have spent the most time flying, ever. The sailors in the America’s Cup that sail maybe 100 or 200 times before the Cup, they fly for just a few minutes a day. We will be the sailors that have the best, longest foiling experience.”

What lies beneath

However, while sensors can monitor inside the boats, and weather routers work to interpret the skies ahead, nobody can see what is in the water in front of a trimaran hurtling along at 35 knots, least of all the skippers.

The Ultimes are trialling solutions. Macif has masthead and infrared cameras which connect to an ‘Oscar’ collision avoidance system. Sodebo has heat-sensing cameras, designed to detect a mass at a different temperature to the water: colder for ice, warmer for sea mammals. But the speeds are too great and an ‘Ovni’ – unidentified underwater object – too small or too fast to detect.

The start of the Brest Atlantiques saw the leading Ultimes averaging over 30 knots and hitting peak speeds in the 40s over the first couple of days. Macif took an early lead, ahead of Maxi Edmond de Rothschild . “ Macif are being really aggressive. We’ve managed to keep pace with them, but we’re stalling, we don’t want to break anything. This is the first time I’ve been trying to go slower on a boat,” commented Caudrelier at the time.

After the first key gybe south, Macif and Maxi Edmond de Rothschild had begun to pull away from Sodebo and Actual Leader and were trading places for the lead in what Cammas called “a beautiful chess game in the Atlantic.”

But the game of strategy rapidly became a contact sport. First, Macif collided with an unidentified foreign object (UFO) as they entered the Doldrums, damaging the central rudder. Then Cammas and Caudrelier suffered daggerboard damage, probably from a collision.

Having a media crew has allowed for video footage of life onboard at 35-40 knots. Photo: Martin Keruzoré

Both boats pulled into South America to make F1-style pitstops (allowed under the race rules without penalty), where they were joined by their shore crew. The Macif team arrived with some spectacular luggage: an entire central rudder, thanks to the Banque Populaire team.

The repaired Ultimes then restarted, Maxi Edmond de Rothschild chasing new leader Sodebo , which had a 200-mile advantage. But Sodebo made a full U-turn, heading back towards Brazil. About to be caught on the front edge of a depression tracking south-east, Coville and Nélias bailed out to sail a great circle, and the race restarted with all four Ultimes within 100 miles.

Coville explained: “We had no choice but to set off on this southern route which was trying to pass under [a] big depression. Jean-Luc told me: we’re not going as fast as expected, the depression is catching up with us and we’re going to find ourselves stuck upwind in 45-50 knots, so it was with a heavy heart that we decided to turn around.

The looping course

“I was really disappointed, because if we had managed to get through this depression, we would have found ourselves with a very comfortable lead, being one weather system ahead of the others. It’s hard to accept losing so much ground.”

Skirting that same frontal system the skippers fought extreme sea states as they headed into the South Atlantic. “These are the worst conditions since the start and not far from the worst I have ever encountered on a multihull,” said Yves Le Blevec on Actual Leader .

“With each wave, it feels like the boat is going to smash; this is not fun. We have about 30 knots of wind, but what’s hard is that we have the waves face-on and the sea is completely crossed and we are being thrown about which means we have to hold on at all times.”

François Gabart, skipper of Macif

“It’s a pity, because I imagined this Rio to Cape Town to be full-on flat-out speeds on flat seas, I’ve been dreaming about it for the last few months,” mused François Gabart. “Unfortunately, it won’t be like that this time. We will have to come back.”

As the boats gybed east, Sodebo became the next to suffer a major UFO collision, ripping off their starboard rudder, and later the aft 5m of starboard hull. As they arrived in Cape Town it transpired that the crash had also damaged the starboard foil. Their race was ended.

With three of the four teams having to pull into port to make repairs, is the Brest Atlantiques a true race or an elaborate sea trial? In many ways it is both. The Ultimes are still very raw, and early in their development curve; they still need nursing round. But the skippers believe they have the potential to change the sport radically.

“We’re trying to imagine what’s going to be our world tomorrow, what’s going to be the offshore racing of tomorrow, and for sure the planet is going to be our playing field,” explained Coville. “I don’t know if we are right or wrong, but we’re trying one way and I’m very enthusiastic to be part of this history.

“In two years we’re going to have six boats, nearly the same numbers as the last Volvo Ocean Race , but trimarans that are 32m long, 23m wide and 35m high! If you remember how we started on the Vendée Globe 25 years ago and now the success of it today, and I think we are pushing the limits even further.”

The rewards are worth it. “For sure these big boats are the most impressive and incredible boats in the world, but they are very fragile,” agreed Coville. “This is the price you have to pay. You have to accept that point if you want to be one of the luckiest sailors in the world.”

First published in the January 2020 edition of Yachting World.

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The Supreme Soloists of the Ultimes

• By James Boyd
• January 9, 2024

On January 7, ocean racing will take another evolutionary step with the mind-boggling feat of six brave Frenchmen who will set off from Brest in northwest France on board their giant 105-by-75-foot foiling trimarans—around the world, nonstop. Singlehanded. The new event is the Arkea Ultim Challenge-Brest, a sprint marathon that is expected to take 45 days or less at an ­average of 20 knots.

The present record for a solo lap of the planet stands at 42 days, 16 hours, 40 minutes, 35 seconds, but when this was set in 2018, skipper François Gabart had the luxury of departing with an optimal 10-day forecast (covering the first quarter of his voyage all the way down to the Southern Ocean). Competitors in the Arkea Ultim Challenge-Brest will have to leave on the designated start date and make the best of whatever Mother Nature offers them. However, while Gabart’s MACIF trimaran is going again (in new livery as Anthony Marchand’s Actual Ultim 3 ), it is now one of the older of the six trimarans that will set out. The newest Ultims, which harness the latest offshore foiling technology, are much, much faster.

Two of the biggest names in solo round-the-world ­record-breaking will be missing from the lineup; Gabart has passed over the helm of his Ultim to “the next generation” in Tom Laperche. Francis Joyon, who demolished the record for the solo lap on two occasions, bringing it down from 125 days to 72 days in 2005 and from 71 days to 57 days four years later, is now 67. While all six starting skippers are highly experienced, they range in age from 55-year-old Thomas Coville, skipper of Sodebo Ultim 3 , to 26-year-old Laperche.

Coville is the race titan. When it comes to racing large trimarans around the world singlehanded, his experience is unprecedented. He’s been attempting circumnavigation records on large trimarans since 1997 and as a skipper since 2008. On his fifth attempt in 2016, he finally set a new record only for it to be broken a year later by Gabart. He also has raced in the America’s Cup and the Volvo Ocean Race (winning it with Franck Cammas on Groupama in 2011-12) and was twice part of crews claiming the Jules Verne Trophy (fully crewed, nonstop around-the-world record). He has completed circumnavigations eight times—four times solo and six times on trimarans.

The most hotly tipped skippers, however, are Armel le Cléac’h, 46, on Maxi Banque Populaire XI, and Charles Caudrelier, 49, on Maxi Edmond de Rothschild . While Caudrelier is best known for being a two-time Volvo Ocean Race winner (with Groupama , then as skipper of Dongfeng Race Team in 2017-18), both cut their teeth solo racing in the French one-design Figaro circuit. But when it comes to solo offshore credentials, Le Cléac’h knocks it out of the park. He’s won La Solitaire three times, most recently in 2020, and crucially for the upcoming Arkea Ultim Challenge-Brest has also raced in three Vendée Globe races, finishing on the podium in all and winning in 2016-17.

Le Cléac’h’s trimaran was launched in 2021 as a replacement for his ­previous Banque Populaire-backed Ultim, which broke up terminally in the 2018 Route du Rhum. Maxi Edmond de Rothschild is unique in the race for being designed by Guillaume Verdier, while the rest are from VPLP (although in every case, the team itself offers substantial input). While Caudrelier has won most Ultim silverware in recent seasons, including the singlehanded Route du Rhum trans-Atlantic race in 2022, Le Cléac’h ended his run by winning this fall’s Transat Jacques Vabre race between Le Havre in northern France and the French Caribbean island of Martinique.

Tom Laperche has taken over as skipper of Francois Gabart’s SVR-Lazartigue for solo races. This is Gabart’s second Ultim trimaran and is considered the most advanced of the six. Laperche won La Solitaire du Figaro in 2022 and has raced with Gabart on the Ultim ever since the boat was launched. He gained his round-the-world experience on the IMOCA Holcim in The Ocean Race.

Also inheriting his Ultim campaign is Anthony Marchand, who took over the helm of Actual Ultim 3 from Yves le Blevec in January. Launched in 2015, Actual Ultim 3 is Gabart’s former MACIF ­trimaran, which is the present holder of the solo round-the-world record. Marchand, 38, sets off with vast experience on ORMA 60 trimarans, in the Figaro class, the Volvo Ocean Race (competing in 2015-16 on MAPFRE ) and in the IMOCA.

Fundamentally, the rule limits length to 32 meters and width to 23 meters, and the complex foil configuration on all six Ultims is fairly similar. 

Éric Péron, 42, is the race’s last-minute entry, and as a newcomer to the Ultim class, he will likely back marker. Péron has a strong background in the Figaro and Ocean 50 trimaran classes, and his trimaran Adagio was previously Sodebo Ultim , on which Coville set both his solo round-the-world and west-to-east trans-Atlantic records.

While there is an Ultim 32/23 rule, the design parameters of these incredible machines is a work in progress. Fundamentally, the rule limits length to 32 meters and width to 23 meters. The complex foil configuration on all six Ultims is fairly similar. Each of the boats has six appendages, including the giant, retracting rake-adjustable J-foils (of varying shapes) in the floats. The latest-generation foils have grown larger, enabling the trimarans to fly both downwind and upwind in less wind. Among the three front-runners, the most recent edition of the Transat Jacques Vabre demonstrated that SVR-Lazartigue has the lowest take-off speed, while Maxi Banque Populaire XI ’s foils work best in waves. Maxi Edmond de Rothschild lies somewhere between these two positions.

Unique to the Ultims is the T-foil pioneered by Caudrelier’s team on their MOD70 (now Giovanni Soldini’s Maserati ). Located in the center hull, this is effectively a daggerboard with a trim tab (to aid pointing ability upwind) and an elevator. This foil is used in a similar fashion to how AC50 catamaran crews negatively raked their windward rudder elevator to produce downforce, sucking the weather hull down. When a gust hits an Ultim, the crew can drop the traveler, but a more energy efficient response is to increase pitch on the T-foil’s elevator to create additional downforce. Then there are three rudders (one on each hull), each with an elevator. The rudders in the floats can be raised (typically the windward one) to reduce drag.

Aside from the significant developments to the foils, especially to reduce cavitation at high speed, teams have been focusing on improving aerodynamic efficiency. The Ultims now have low-drag vinyl fairings for the aft side of their crossbeams, and on some boats, the deck itself forms an endplate for the foot of sails. Living quarters have improved dramatically and, like modern IMOCAs, are becoming increasingly enclosed. The most extreme among them is Sodebo Ultim 3 , where the front of Coville’s “bridge” is forward of the mast step.

Autopilots have transcended beyond being able to steer to course, apparent wind angle or even true wind angle. Depending on the point of sail, the pilot will now automatically head up or bear away when a gust hits. 

The rigs are the same as those that have been fitted to French multihulls for the past 30 years—a rotating wing mast with each shroud terminating in a giant hydraulic ram, permitting the rig (and its center of effort) to be canted to weather. This reduces the downward force on the leeward bow, which can cause multihulls to pitchpole. Whether this is still required is a moot point because today’s foils effectively keep the leeward bow from immersing.

Due to the sheer physics of an Ultim, aided by the canting rig and the mast being stepped so far aft, the risk of capsize is almost ­nonexistent, Caudrelier says: “The Ultims are the safest multihulls because they fly, because they are big, but also because we have made huge improvements to the pilots with safety functions, and also we have a nice automatic ­system to ease the sails. It is quite safe. I don’t worry too much about capsizing, but I have in the back of my mind that it can happen.”

Thanks to teams working with such companies as B&G and Pixel sur Mer, Ultim autopilots have transcended beyond being able to steer to course, apparent wind angle or even true wind angle. Depending on the point of sail, the pilot (using what’s referred to as its “safety overlay”) will now automatically head up or bear away when a gust hits, which it can detect by the wind instruments or an inclinometer. In extreme circumstances, they have systems to dump the sheets, although these too seem to be near-redundant. 

An interesting point of dispute between the Ultim teams is how much automation should be permitted. Caudrelier’s team is pro automation, while other teams are less so. As a result, the autopilot can perform these functions but cannot, for example, adjust the boat’s flying mechanism, to automatically set ride height, pitch, etc.

If capsize is less of a concern, then the skipper’s biggest worries are technical failures on their giant boats, as well as collisions. They have tried to overcome the former through sheer time at sea, testing and failing to improve reliability. Le Cléac’h, for example, says that in the past year, he has sailed Maxi Banque Populaire XI some 20,000 miles, or half a circumnavigation. This has been solo and crewed, in a mix of races, private sea trials and the Ultim fleet training en masse. To avoid collisions, the Ultims have all available kit from radar to AIS alarms to the latest tech such as SEA.AI, which uses a masthead-mounted camera array to see objects—floating or semisubmerged—in the water ahead of the boat. These are compared in real time with the SEA.AI’s huge and ever-growing database of objects to identify them as threats.

In the recent Transat Jacques Vabre, Maxi Edmond de Rothschild suffered rudder issues soon after the start (later found to be a delaminating starboard rudder) and then damage to its port J-foil, but it still finished the race. It seems, therefore, very likely that this level of attrition can be expected in the Arkea Ultim Challenge-Brest. Caudrelier says that this proved to be a wake-up call for his team as well as valuable practice for how to deal with midrace technical issues. For example, the J-foil damage occurred after a small impact. “But while we were sailing, the damage increased,” he says. Perhaps it would have been faster in the long term to stop, fix the issue, and then continue, he muses. For bigger issues, race’s sailing instructions permit skippers to pitstop where their teams can join them to effect repairs, but in this case, they are obliged to spend a minimum of 24 hours in port as a penalty.

To help reduce risks, OC Sport Pen Duick, the race’s organizers, are ­imposing a movable virtual ice barrier as we have seen in other round-the-world races. Competitors must stay north of this, regardless of whether it drives them into high pressure or storms. Interestingly, they are also imposing exclusion zones around known breeding grounds for whales (yet to be defined at the time of writing).

The Arkea Ultim Challenge-Brest may be a solo race, but each campaign is genuinely a team affair. Ultim teams today are giant, some the scale of America’s Cup teams two or three decades ago, with their own in-house designers, engineers, hydro and aerodynamic specialists, and electronic and hydraulic experts. In the event of a technical issue during the race, skippers can now get immediate support using reliable satellite communications. The most consistent remote support each skipper gets is with their routing. In the Ultim class, shore-based routing is permitted. Le Cleac’h, for example, is using Dutch legend Marcel van Triest and French skipper/navigator Nicolas Lunven to provide round-the-clock routing assistance.

Ultims are fast—50 knots is very possible—but skippers are less interested in top speed and entirely focused on maintaining high averages of 30 to 35 knots. They don’t need much wind to achieve such a pace, however. An Ultim’s optimal conditions are broad-reaching in 20 to 25 knots. Any more wind than that, and the sea state gets too large to foil safely. Even in optimal wind conditions, skippers must back off if sea state and wave direction is not ideal. Understanding this is vital to the routing process.

The Ultims are potentially so fast that their routing team can go a long way in ensuring that they stay in optimal conditions. For example, in the Southern Ocean, if they can get into the optimal reaching conditions in flat water ahead of a front, they can potentially ride this for days. But the biggest limitation is the solo skipper. The Ultims typically carry a mainsail and four headsails, including two gennakers and a permanently hoisted J2, all set on furlers. Tacking and jibing requires the sails to be released and sheeted in, the mast to be canted and tacked, and foils and rudders to be raised and lowered. It’s a process that typically takes 20 to 30 minutes. Le Cleac’h says that the most time-consuming sail change is going from the J0 to the J1 because the sails are heavy (around 120 kg), and this can take up to an hour. Factoring all this into the routing is vital because the skipper on his own can do only so much.

“If reaching 95 percent of the boat’s potential requires making three jibes and four tacks and to change two sails, it will be difficult to do that if you are tired,” Le Cleac’h says. His routers offer him three options—from the one offering optimal performance to the easiest for him to achieve—which can be decided based on his energy level and capabilities.

One positive for the skippers is that the required endurance is comparably short compared with a Vendée Globe effort, but still, so much remains unknown as they embark on this extreme test of man and machine. 

“It is a bit like the first Vendée Globe,” Caudrelier says. “It is not quite the same because we know where we are going, but it is the first one, so it is a bit of an adventure. Usually you push to the maximum constantly, but for me, this is the first time I can’t do that. We will have to find the good balance between good performance and safety of the boat. That is an interesting exercise.”

• More: Arkea Ultim Challenge Brest , Print January 2024 , Racing , Sailboat Racing
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A day that lit up the Finistère and kicked off the Ocean Relay!

Picture by Paris 2024 / Cédric Michel / Sipa Press

The Olympic Torch Relay experienced a particularly festive day in the Finistère before leaving Brest to begin the unique chapter of the Ocean Relay which will illuminate 5 overseas territories. The relay continued its sporting tour of Brittany, from surfing to hiking, this Friday. The enthusiasm was palpable between Port-la-Forêt and the stage host city of Brest with the Olympic Torch Relay sponsors, Coca-Cola, Banque Populaire and Caisse d’Epargne bringing the relay convoy and celebration site to life, giving spectators an unforgettable experience.

The former winner of Miss France, Laury Thilleman, lit the celebration cauldron on Quai Malbert, before the Olympic Torch embarked for an unprecedented Transatlantic crossing to Guadeloupe, with Armel Le Cléac’h and a legendary crew at the helm of the Maxi Banque Populaire XI trimaran. Paired up with Sébastien Josse, the two yachtsmen, who between them have sailed around the world 7 times, set off accompanied by four budding sailors, namely Marie-José Pérec, Marine Lorphelin, Alexis Michalik and Hugo Roellinger, for what promises to be the adventure of a lifetime!

The Olympic Torch burns bright in Finistère!

The day in the Finistère began in a musical atmosphere in Port-la-Forêt, opposite the Glénan Islands. This part of Brittany, nicknamed “crazy valley” by famous French sailor Olivier de Kersauson, has been the training ground of many renowned skippers, such as Jean Le Cam. The Olympic Torch also illuminated Quimper, passing alongside the Stade Pierre de Coubertin stadium and the quays bordering the Odet River to the historical city centre. The Spires of the Saint Corentin Cathedral overlooked this day of sporting and cultural events. In the heart of the Bigouden area, the Point de la Torche cape, a windswept peninsula which attracts surfers and hikers alike, played host to the collective surfing relay, admired by the spectators present on the immense white sandy beach. After a breath of sea air, the Olympic Torch headed for Plougastel-Daoulas, which is famous for its strawberries and boasts the “active and sporting town” label. Since it has been chosen as a training centre for the Olympic Games, it was an essential visit for the relay.

In the afternoon, the Olympic Torch Relay visited the Pointe du Raz cape, which welcomes approximately 800,000 visitors per year. Almost 600 pupils from Cap Sizun watched the show, accompanied, to begin with, by the Bagad Beuzeg Ar C’hab traditional musical group, as the relay passed in front of the Notre-Dame des Naufragés memorial to all those lost at sea. The approaches to the Raz de Sein straits also played host to a magnificent parade of old sailing ships. The Olympic Torch Relay then headed to Mont Saint-Michel-de-Brasparts, in Saint-Rivoal. From the chapel, it overlooked the heath landscape that is characteristic of the area, showing that the Finistère has more to offer than just its 2,263 kilometres of coastline. After the Monts d’Arrée hills, the Olympic Torch Relay then set off towards Brest, the “capital of the oceans”. It meandered through the city from the Moulin Blanc port, in front of a formation in the water of the letters “JO 2024” (JO: Jeux Olympiques / Olympic Games) created by one hundred water walkers. It then passed near to the Pont de Recouvrance bridge, which overlooks the arsenal and military port, before visiting the castle in Brest, which is home to the French national navy museum.

Almost 140 torchbearers helped the Finistère shine well beyond its borders

Jean Le Cam, nicknamed “King Jean”, was the first person to carry the Olympic Torch today, in Port-la-Forêt. At the age of 65 years old, he is preparing to start his 6 th Vendée Globe round the world race in November. All along the route, other celebrities took it in turns to carry the Olympic Torch, such as French women’s handball team goalkeeper, Cléopâtre Darleux. Sébastien Flute, a French archer and Olympic champion in 1992, was present in Brest, as was Mariamma Merandon. This native of Brest, who won the French Nationale 3 division title in wheelchair football, also takes part in boccia and is dreaming of representing France at the Paralympic Games. Arnaud Kergosien, a para-table tennis champion and 7 th best French player, carried the Olympic Torch at the Espace Avel Vor venue in Plougastel. At the day’s end, many spectators were present to encourage Laury Thilleman in Brest. The former Miss France, who is now a television presenter, was the last torchbearer of the day, before the Olympic Torch takes a journey overseas.

Today, as on previous days, was punctuated with inspiring stories. Claude Courgeau, the day’s oldest torchbearer, carried the Olympic Torch in Brest and has been working for over 30 years in the voluntary sector to help vulnerable young people. Jacques Barreau, with his company, uses cargo sailing ships to transport coffee and chocolate from one side of the world to the other. Marie-Louise Quinault, who carried the Olympic Torch in Quimper, is a veritable bundle of energy and contributes to the dynamism of her region through charitable and sporting activities.

The best-known surfing spot in Brittany plays host to the collective relay

La Torche, a famous surfing spot in Brittany, welcomed the collective surfing relay. This peninsula made a name for itself when the funboard world championships were held here in 1986. Its Dantean weather conditions, with 40-knot winds, have forged its legend. Located to the south of the Audierne Bay, this site has witnessed the beginnings of future champions, such as the native of the Bigouden area Louka Tirilly de Vera. As captain of this collective relay and a pillar of France’s surfing academy team, he embodies youth and cross-generational oceanic heritage. Alongside him, 23 other torchbearers were present, including the day’s youngest, Salomé Delaporte. Marc Emmanuel Dubrana demonstrated that visual impairment is in no way an obstacle for enjoying your passions to the full. Other athletes distinguished themselves on the water during this relay, such as shortboard champion Gaspard Larsonneur and Amandine Chazot, an elite level stand-up paddle athlete who has also shone in her medical studies, not forgetting Ronan Chatain, a former longboard champion, who shone in the world championships between 1997 and 2002.

The Olympic Torch sets sail for an exceptional crossing aboard Maxi Banque Populaire XI!

On Friday 7 th June, a unique chapter of the Paris 2024 Olympic Torch Relay began, with the Ocean Relay. Thanks to Banque Populaire, one of the sponsors of the Olympic Torch Relay, the Ocean Relay involves a major sporting event: a crossing of the Atlantic Ocean aboard Maxi Banque Populaire XI, the famous Ultim class trimaran skippered by Armel Le Cléac’h, who is a major figure in ocean yacht racing and the quickest sailor to complete a tour of the world in a monohull boat. Alongside him during the crossing will be another yachtsman, Sébastien Josse, who is also a major figure in sailing, as well as a legendary crew made up of personalities who embody French success and know-how.

Marie-José Pérec, the only Frenchwoman to become a triple Olympic champion in athletics, Marine Lorphelin, an Olympic Torch Relay ambassador, Alexis Michalik, a star of French theatre and Hugo Roellinger, a chef with two Michelin stars, set sail this evening with a mixture of excitement and emotion alongside the two yachtsmen.

The imposing maxi-trimaran left Brest, with the Olympic Torch carefully preserved in a lantern on board, heading to the West Indies to experience a historical adventure. The images of this giant of the seas sailing down the Goulet de Brest narrows were breathtaking on this Friday evening. By transporting the Flame to France's overseas territories, the Ocean Relay is enabling French people all over the world to take part in this great popular festival and celebrate the Games. The Ultim boat is expected to arrive on 15 th June in Pointe-à-Pitre in Guadeloupe before heading to Martinique on 16 th June with a new crew on board, made up of overseas sportspeople, to celebrate the success of the overseas French sportspeople of the past, present and future.

At the same time as the great crossing undertaken by Maxi Banque Populaire XI to the West Indies, the Olympic Torch, transported in lanterns, will successively illuminate French Guyana on 9 th June, La Réunion on 12 th June and French Polynesia on 13 th June.