2024-01-07 12:22:00
It’s a first. This Sunday, January 7, 2024, at midday, six skippers set off from Brest for the Arkéa Ultim Challenge: a world tour aboard Ultim, giant trimarans almost twice as big as the Vendée Globe monohulls. , as explained Le Figaro. Here is what you need to know about this new regatta, which should last forty to fifty days.
A new principle
The Arkéa Ultim Challenge is the first solo sailing trip around the world reserved for Ultims, trimarans 32 meters long and 23 meters wide. The principle was developed in 2006 by Roland Tresca, deputy general director of the Télégramme Group, explains France Info. The challenge is finally becoming a reality today: it is the first time that this type of boat – the fastest on the planet – has competed against each other on a round-the-world trip. They are expected to cover 40,000 kilometers of ocean, from west to east, via the Capes of Good Hope (South Africa), Leeuwin (Australia) and Horn (Chile), in forty to fifty days.
Six pioneering skippers
Six skippers are in the running. Tom Laperche, 26, is the youngest in the competition. His goal ? “First of all, to finish, but I also have the competitive side: I believe in my ability to win this race,” he declared to Monde. The daily reminds that this is the first time that he is alone on board the SVR-Lazartigue trimaran, which was entrusted to him by François Gabart in the spring of 2023.
Among the competitors is also Armel Le Cléac’h. Aged 46, he is the winner of the Jacques-Vabre 2023 transatlantic race, alongside Sébastien Josse. Another competitor, the almost fifty-year-old Charles Caudrelier, who is the winner of the 2022 Route du rhum.
Thomas Coville, 55, is the dean of the transatlantic race. In 2016, he was the first to sail around the world solo on an Ultim in less than fifty days – in forty-nine days and three hours. Finally, Anthony Marchand, 38 years old, and Éric Péron, 42 years old, complete the starting line. The first played ten Solitaires of the Figaro, the second has more than twenty years of experience.
The specificities
For the first time on an offshore race, zones of concentration of cetaceans (around the Azores, the Canary archipelago, South Africa, the Kerguelen Islands and Antarctica), defined by a scientific consortium and organizers, are prohibited to competitors. The objective is to “protect the oceans and [d’]ensure the safety of skippers and their boats”, in the words of Joseph Bizard, general director of OC Sport, the company organizing the race, interviewed by France Info.
Another specificity: technical stopovers are authorized. However, they must last at least twenty-four hours. This is a penalizing feature, the objective being that “the boats favor a round-the-world trip without stops”, according to the organization, again with France Info.
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