Crédit Mutuel hold off Belgian rivals to win Globe40

Ian Lipinski and Antoine Carpentier crossed the finish line off Lorient on Wednesday morning to clinch overall victory in the Globe40, ending a seven-month duel with their Belgian rivals that had come down to the final 48 hours.

The French pair on Crédit Mutuel took their fifth leg win of the race – and the one that mattered most – after Belgium Ocean Racing - Curium suffered a torn gennaker fastening in four-metre waves with the finish in sight. Jonas Gerckens and Benoît Hantzperg couldn't repair the damage at sea and crossed the line two hours and 43 minutes behind.

It was that close.

The Globe40 format sees Class40 crews rotate sailors across six legs plus a prologue, covering more than 30,000 nautical miles from Lorient and back via Cape Verde, Réunion, Sydney, Valparaíso and Recife. The French and Belgian teams had been locked together throughout, trading blows leg after leg. Crédit Mutuel won five of the seven stages, but the Belgians claimed the marathon second leg from Cape Verde to Réunion – scoring triple points – and the two teams were declared joint winners of Leg 5 after the racing became unresolvable.

Final standings: France 21 points, Belgium 23. A two-point gap that only hints at how hard-fought this was.

For Lipinski, this was his first circumnavigation – albeit with different crew combinations across the legs. He paired with Carpentier for the prologue, first leg, and the final two stages. Ocean Race Europe winner Amélie Grassi joined him for legs two and three, while her husband Alan Roberts sailed with Carpentier on leg four.

Carpentier, remarkably, sailed every stage bar the third, and won all of them with a rotating cast.

“We have made it! That's a huge relief and takes a lot of pressure off me,” Lipinski said at the finish. “Completing a circumnavigation – even if I haven't sailed the entire Pacific – gives me serenity and confidence in my abilities as a skipper.”

The Globe40 title slots neatly into an already impressive collection. Lipinski has won the Mini-Transat twice, the Transat Jacques Vabre, and the CIC Normandy Channel Race. At 30, he's becoming one of the most decorated French offshore sailors of his generation.

The Belgian campaign, led by Jonas Gerckens and backed by Curium, pushed the favourites all the way. Gerckens was gracious at the dock: “It's a nice second place! They were the favourites. It was a good surprise that we were able to fight on equal terms with them.”

Melwin Fink, racing with Lennart Burke for third and still some 750 miles out when the leaders finished, put it simply: “They didn't allow themselves any big mistakes and clearly deserved the win.”

That's what it came down to – consistency under relentless pressure, a boat that stayed together, and one broken sail loop at exactly the wrong moment for their rivals.

The winners are ashore, but the racing isn't over. Follow the rest of the fleet on the Globe40 tracker.