Route du Rhum: the start postponed due to the weather


Martin Lange, with AFP
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6:23 p.m., November 05, 2022

The start of the Route du Rhum from Saint-Malo this Sunday, is postponed “to Tuesday or Wednesday”, pending the improvement of weather conditions, announce this Saturday the organizers of the famous transatlantic race. Objective, “to avoid breakage or worse”, specifies the director Francis le Goff.

The start of the Route du Rhum, a famous solo transatlantic race, which was to be given on Sunday in Saint-Malo bound for Guadeloupe, has been postponed “to Tuesday or Wednesday” pending more favorable weather conditions, announced the organizers on Saturday. “It was possible to give the start on Sunday, but according to the weather forecast, the fleet would have quickly found itself in a very strong sea state at the tip of Brittany with gusts of wind reaching 100 km/h. We know that there would have been breakage and potentially more serious”, explained to AFP Francis Le Goff, director of the race.

The announcement was made in the morning after a weather briefing given to the 138 sailors involved in this prestigious race, which has taken place every four years since 1978 and whose start had never been postponed. The organizers are now counting on “a new start on Tuesday November 8 or Wednesday November 9”. “This decision aims to optimize the security of the fleet and to give the best possible conditions to the sailors. Our estimates are reliable enough to know that the fight will be there for the next start and that we will still have a good race. “, explained Francis Le Goff.

“wise and reasonable”

For several days, with the deterioration of the forecasts, concern had been mounting on the pontoons in Saint-Malo among the sailors involved, a mixture of amateurs and professionals. “I think it’s a good decision which was not easy to take. It’s wise and reasonable given the particularly violent conditions which were to come”, reacted François Gabart (SVR-Lazartigue) who left at aboard an Ultim, a 32 m long maxi-trimaran.

“The fastest boats might have been able to avoid the gale by heading for Ireland, but not all of them. And there wouldn’t necessarily have been room for 138 boats to take shelter in surrounding ports,” he said. The Route du Rhum fleet is made up of 6 categories of sailboats: from the small monohulls that participated in the first edition to the latest generation flying multihulls. Some are more fragile than others and less suitable for navigation during storms.

“I am relieved as a runner. We could lose boats and human lives. The problem is that there was no real escape to avoid the bad weather”, reacted to the AFP Erwan Le Roux (Koesio), skipper and president of the Ocean Fity class, light trimarans 15 meters long.



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