The Route du Rhum IMOCA battle has been transformed by the brilliant routing and tactical execution of Corentin Horeau, who has opened up a commanding lead aboard MACSF in the 13th edition of the four-yearly classic from St Malo to Pointe-à-Pitre. Former winner Thomas Ruyant, who claimed the IMOCA Class title four years ago, has been following every twist and turn of this dramatic race and admits he has been glued to his Tracker since Sunday’s start.
Ruyant, currently searching for a new title sponsor for his 2028 Vendée Globe campaign, has been hugely impressed by Horeau’s performance. The 37-year-old Frenchman, who won the Solitaire du Figaro in 2023, grabbed this race by the scruff of its neck with a direct westward course to the north of the Azores. He then managed to cross a stationary weather front that ensnared all of his pursuers, including early leaders and pre-race favourites Sam Goodchild on MACIF Santé Prévoyance and Italian skipper Ambrogio Beccaria on Allagrande MAPEI.
Once through the front, a delighted Horeau rocketed south in strong northerly breeze, stretching his lead over second-placed Boris Herrmann’s Malizia 4 to nearly 175 nautical miles. Francesca Clapcich on 11th Hour Racing sat just a couple of miles further back in third.
“Of course, we know Corentin’s qualities as a sailor,” said Ruyant. “But what’s particularly impressive is the quality of his routing which is allowing him to get through one of the major strategic challenges of this Route du Rhum.” Horeau himself described his progress over the previous 24 hours as the stuff of dreams.
The key tactical divergence came when both Goodchild and Beccaria, at that stage ahead of Horeau, took a short gybe to the north to position themselves for the narrowest crossing of the front. It proved a costly error. Both ended up trapped in windless conditions while Horeau and the boats to the south continued making progress.
“Perhaps there was a small mistake in making that little tactical detour north, or northwest, to position themselves for crossing the front,” explained Ruyant. “Corentin, on the other hand, sailed straight on. He’s made up the small deficit he had, moved into the lead and now has every opportunity to stretch his legs and build a gap in the current conditions. So it’s really the routing choice that has made the difference and paid off for Corentin. He’s sailed extremely well, following a very direct route without any major detours and that’s what has put him in front.”
The early stages of this Route du Rhum have seen plenty of incident as the 22-strong IMOCA fleet set sail from St Malo in moderate downwind conditions that steadily built over the first 24 hours. Violette Dorange on Initiatives-Coeur collided with Use It Again, Romain Pilliard’s vintage multihull formerly sailed by Ellen MacArthur as B&Q, forcing both skippers to divert to Roscoff. Dorange is now back in Lorient and still hoping to re-start.
Armel Tripon retired on Les P’Tits Doudous with rudder damage, while Jérémie Beyou, in his last race with Charal, turned around and retired for medical reasons. It was a sad end to Beyou’s decade-long Charal campaign and his hopes of winning the Route du Rhum at the fifth time of asking.
Ahead of the leaders, the weather looks complex and daunting. A large and deep low pressure system is forming north of the Azores which could produce challenging sea conditions later this week, especially for the lower reaches of the IMOCA fleet.
“What’s coming next is going to be really interesting,” said Ruyant. “They’ll have to sail through a narrow corridor ahead of them, probably following it with a few gybes. After that the skippers will have to cross a ridge of high pressure to reconnect with a weather system and a low pressure area, with all the associated windshifts, before reaching a fairly strong downwind breeze. From tomorrow onward, they’ll really be able to pick up speed again on a fairly direct route. I think we’ll be looking at record-breaking conditions… things could get incredibly fast.”
Ruyant says this is an entirely atypical weather pattern for this 3,540-mile sprint to Pointe-à-Pitre. “There’s a lot of strategy involved,” he said. “This is definitely not a typical Route du Rhum trade wind race, which is sometimes what you get. We’re actually seeing low pressure systems developing quite far south — it’s going to be fascinating to follow.”
Beyond the leading foilers, Ruyant has been keeping an eye on the daggerboard front-runners. Frenchman Nico D’Estais on Café Joyeux sits in ninth place overall, just over 20 miles ahead of Pierre-Louis Attwell on Resilient, with Sébastien Marsset on Foussier in third among the daggerboard boats, another 17 miles back.
“It’s a race within a race as always. That’s one of the fascinating things about the IMOCA fleet: there’s a battle going on at every level,” said Ruyant. “However, these boats are going to face somewhat tougher conditions than the leading boats. The second front they’re going to encounter is associated with the low pressure system that’s developing and wrapping around itself, and it’s going to take up a large part of the Atlantic. They won’t really have much choice but to cross it and there will be fairly strong winds across much of the fleet, particularly for the back of the IMOCA fleet and the Class 40s.”
Ruyant admitted he was bitterly disappointed not to be able to defend his title and initially planned to keep only a casual eye on proceedings. But as the race has developed, he says he has been glued to the Tracker and his routing software, working out what the leaders will do next. “I’ve really got caught up in following the race, across all the different classes and particularly the IMOCA fleet, because those are the boats I know best,” he said. “It wasn’t necessarily what I’d planned to do, but I’m still completely hooked!”
In the meantime, the former skipper of LinkedOut and Vulnerable is continuing his hunt for a new commercial partner to ensure he gets to the startline of the next Vendée Globe in contention for the podium.
