Corentin Horeau won the IMOCA class of the Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe on Wednesday, crossing the line off Pointe-à-Pitre aboard MACSF at 01:14 local time after 9 days, 17 hours and 12 minutes at sea. The time cuts almost two days off the class record of 11 days, 17 hours and 36 minutes set by Thomas Ruyant in 2022.
The French skipper covered 4,073 nautical miles from Saint-Malo at an average of 17.5 knots and led the class for much of the crossing. The final miles were the slowest of the race: the wind faded off the Guadeloupe coast, turning what had been a fast passage into a tense, drawn-out approach to the finish.
Horeau’s arrival came just two minutes after Basile Bourgnon’s Ocean Fifty trimaran Edenred 5 took its own class win, a rare finish in which a monohull almost caught a multihull on the line. Two class winners within minutes of each other in the middle of the night drew a large crowd to the dock in Pointe-à-Pitre, where Horeau celebrated with flares and champagne.
Photos: Vincent Curutchet, Loïc Venance / AFP
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