Route du Rhum 2026: the essential guide

On Sunday 1 November, more than a hundred solo sailors leave Saint-Malo for Guadeloupe in the 13th Route du Rhum. Here’s why this edition is shaping up to be one of the most fascinating yet.

No other race on the calendar looks quite like the start of the Route du Rhum. At 13:02 on 1 November, off the Pointe du Grouin, a 32-metre flying trimaran capable of crossing the Atlantic in under a week will share the start area with a 1986 Swan 59 that will need the best part of three.

That has been the spirit of the race since 1978, when it was thrown open to monohulls and multihulls of any size, professionals and amateurs alike. Nearly half a century on, the formula is the same: 3,542 miles from Saint-Malo to Pointe-à-Pitre, one sailor per boat, and everyone welcome.

What that really gives us is six races in one. Eight giant Ultims will battle for line honours and a shot at Charles Caudrelier’s record of 6 days, 19 hours and 47 minutes. Ten Ocean Fifty trimarans and 22 IMOCAs fight their own fierce class battles, while 49 Class40s make up by far the biggest fleet. Then come two brand-new categories, Vintage Multi and Vintage Mono, where the boats are as much a part of the story as the skippers.

Each class has its own favourites, its own form guide and its own stories – and some of them are very good stories indeed.

Scratch beneath the surface of this year’s fleet and you’ll find a lot of sailors with something to settle.

Sam Goodchild starts as the clear IMOCA favourite after a near-flawless season, yet he has never finished a Route du Rhum. This time he races MACIF Santé Prévoyance, the Vendée Globe-winning boat conceived by Charlie Dalin, who died in June aged just 42. Few results this November would carry more meaning.

In the Ultim class, Armel Le Cléac’h lines up for his fifth Rhum still waiting for the result his talent deserves, after a capsize in 2018 and a broken daggerboard in 2022. Caudrelier, meanwhile, defends his title on Gitana 18, a radical new flying machine that has yet to race anyone.

Jérémie Beyou, twice on the IMOCA podium here, is sailing his last race with Charal after ten years together. And in the Ocean Fifty class, 24-year-old Basile Bourgnon carries one of the most famous names in Rhum history. His late father, Laurent, won the race twice in the 1990s. Basile arrives as the man in form.

This edition also feels like a race at a crossroads, with one foot firmly in its past and the other stepping boldly into the future.

The new Vintage classes, which replace the old Rhum Multi and Rhum Mono categories, have brought back some extraordinary boats and sailors. Four ORMA 60 trimarans – the type that dominated this race in the 1990s – are on the start line, one of them sailed by 2018 winner Francis Joyon, now 70. Paralympic champion Damien Seguin races the former Fujicolor II, the very boat he watched finish in Guadeloupe as a ten-year-old in 1990. Jean Le Cam is back for the first time in 20 years on a 1986 Swan 59, and the ex-PRB, the only boat to win the Vendée Globe twice, is racing again too.

At the other end of the scale, brand-new boats such as Gitana 18, Boris Herrmann’s Malizia 4 and Sébastien Simon’s Groupe Dubreuil 2 face their first big solo test. The youngest skipper in the race, Titouan Pilliard, is just 20.

There will be fresh names on the trophies, too. Yoann Richomme, Class40 winner in 2018 and 2022, isn’t racing, and neither is double Ocean Fifty winner Erwan Le Roux, so both classes will crown new champions.

Over the coming days we’re breaking down every class in detail, with the contenders, the dark horses and the stories behind them. You'll find our full runners and riders series below (soon):

• Ultim – eight giants, and the race for line honours
• Ocean Fifty – a wide-open class with no defending champion
• IMOCA – Goodchild the favourite in a 22-strong fleet
• Class40 – Douguet v Pirouelle, and a dozen more in with a shout
• Vintage Multi – the return of the ORMAs
• Vintage Mono – Le Cam, Isoard and the classics

The gun goes at 13:02 on Sunday 1 November. See you in Saint-Malo.