Martin Lange, edited by Yanis Darras
modified to
1:55 p.m., November 10, 2022
For this first day and night of the Route du Rhum, the competition is in full swing. The maxi trimarans are making rapid progress in their mad dash towards Guadeloupe. At the head of the category, the Frenchman Charles Caudrelier. But these first hours of racing were also marked by the retirement of Sam Goodchild.
They finally left Saint-Malo. This Wednesday, the 138 competitors in the Route du Rhum competition were finally able to set sail to try to reach Guadeloupe. For this first day of racing, everything went rather well, according to the organization’s map.
Unsurprisingly, the maxi trimarans, grouped in the Ultim category, occupy the first places in the ranking. The latter are already well advanced in the Atlantic Ocean. For the moment, Charles Caudrelier’s boat, a maxi-trimaran ‘Edmond de Rothschild’, is in the lead. But a dispute takes place around the French since, according to the organization, he would have crossed the starting line too early this Wednesday. He should therefore pay four hours of penalty. A decision contested by the skipper’s team.
First abandonment
Still, in the meantime, these sailing giants of the seas are moving forward and fast. They took the road due west, and are very close to the most direct route to Guadeloupe. For the Imoca boats and the Ocean Fifty, the sailors adopted a different strategy and headed due south, along the French coast.
“We’re getting to the somewhat technical part, where we’re going to go around Brittany. We’re going to find ourselves really offshore, choosing our route a bit on the Atlantic with a fairly strong front coming in front of us. And there we have to try to find the best trajectory for the future”, explains for Europe 1 the skipper François Gabart.
“It’s quite tight in front. It fights well in any case”, admitted this Wednesday evening the skipper Thibaut Vauchel-Camus. “Rest well Sam”, he also addressed in his video message, in tribute to the first abandonment of the season: Sam Goodchild. The Englishman, injured in the arm and in the head, had to be airlifted to the hospital in Saint-Malo. Now there are only 137 in the race this morning.