SVR Lazartigue during the Transat Café L'OR - photo © Qaptur
Dear Recipient Name
The realities of shorter days and cooler temperatures might be sweeping over most of North America these days, but that hasn't stopped a recent flurry of offshore-racing news. The biennial Transat Café L'OR is currently unfurling in the North Atlantic Ocean, with racing taking place in Class40s and IMOCA 60 monohulls, and aboard Ocean Fifty and Ultim multihull classes. Racing began on Sunday, October 26, with each class racing its own course.
An impressive 42 Class40s started the race, and as of this writing (Monday Morning, U.S. West Coast time), Corentin Douguet and Axel Trehin, racing aboard SNSM Faites Un Don, are leading the hunt in this popular class, followed by Guillaume Pirouelle and Cedric Chateau, aboard Seafrigo-Sogestran, and Luca Rosetti and Matteo Sericano, aboard Maccaferri Futura.
"Things are already complicated tactically and strategically," said Rosetti in an official event communication. "First, because the boat is slamming hard, there are still waves, and we're still upwind. Second, because we're playing with a high-pressure system, trying to find the right balance and avoid getting stuck in a windless zone."
This, of course, involves careful weather routing.
"Right now, we're dealing with a high-pressure system, and then a few lows will come through," Rosetti continued. "So, we've got quite a few weather situations ahead, and we'll need to handle them well to stay at the front of the fleet.
Unfortunately, Nicolas Guibal and Gauthier Bril, racing aboard Esatco, and Rodolphe Sepho and Jean-Pierre Coutayar, racing aboard Reve De Large 5, have been forced to retire.
In the Ocean Fifty class, Emmanuel Le Roch and Basille Bourgnon, sailing aboard Edenred 5, are topping the leaderboard, followed by Baptiste Hulin and Thomas Rouxel, racing aboard Viabilis Oceans, and Pierre Quiroga and Gaston Morvan, sailing aboard Wewise.
"The winds are not very strong," said Le Roch in an official race report. "We think our option was still the best, even though we have our doubt because we're still quite far from them, and repositioning is pointless, so we'll know for sure later. We are not moving any slower than them, and we're on route so for now it's okay. I admit that yesterday at one point, they were at 22 knots and we were at 3 knots, we were like, wow, this is going to be complicated."
Unfortunately, the Ocean Fifty class has seen a thirty percent attrition rate so far, with three of the ten starting teams (Erwan Le Draoulec and Tanguy Le Turquais, aboard Lazare X Hellio, Erwan Le Roux and Audrey Ogereau, aboard Koesio, and Matthieu Perraut and Jean-Baptiste Gellee, aboard Inter Invest) being forced to retire.
Impressively, all 18 IMOCA 60 teams that began racing on Sunday, October 26 are still in the game.
Jeremie Beyou and Morgan Lagraviere, racing aboard Charal, are currently topping the leaderboard in the IMOCA 60 class, followed by Sam Goodchild and Lois Berrehar, aboard Macif Sante Prevoyance and Francesca Clapcich and Will Harris, aboard 11th Hour Racing.
"It was not really intentional to end up further east than them," said Harris in an official race report. "We gybed first and they gybed five or ten miles after us and unfortunately that opened up to become quite a bit of separation, they have a slightly more right shifted breeze and obviously they are the quickest boat in the fleet at the moment, we have lost a few miles as we sailed into a bit less pressure, so, we will see what comes up up ahead."
All 18 IMOCA 60s might still be in the fight, but the leaders now have a gap of over 1,000 nautical miles over Szabolcs Weores and Berenice Charrez, sailing aboard New Europe, and over Conrad Coleman and Mathieu Blanchard, sailing aboard MSIG Europe.
Finally, in the mighty Ultim class, Tom Laperche and Franck Cammas, sailing aboard SVR-Lazartigue, are leading the hunt, followed by Thomas Coville and Benjamin Schwartz, aboard Sodebo Ultim 3, and Antyhony Marchand and Julien Villion, aboard Actual Ultim 4.
"We expended a lot of energy over these 24 hours," reported Laperche in a race communique. "We have been doing a lot of maneuvering. In a short amount of time, at the beginning, we changed almost all the sails. And in the second part, there was a bit more distance between the cloudy masses, the squalls, with the boat still making a little progress. We started out going at crazy speeds, but it allowed us to take turns and get some decent stretches of sleep. Since then, we've slept. So, we're already feeling better. But it's definitely taking its toll. We've done a week of racing in the Ultim class. We're not in the same shape as we were in Le Havre, but frankly, we're doing pretty well."
As with the IMOCA 60 class, all four starting Ultims are still on the course, however Armel Le Cleac'h and Sebastien Josse, sailing aboard Maxi Banque Populaire XI, are 450 miles astern of Actual Ultim 4.
While the Transat Café L'OR features mostly professional crews racing aboard polished raceboats, the ongoing McIntyre Mini Globe Race 2025 features amateur sailors racing around the world aboard homebuilt 19-foot ALMA Class Globe 5.8s. The Mini Globe Race is contested as a series of stage races, and—as of this writing—the fleet is pressing from Port Louis, on Mauritius, to Durban, South Africa.
From Durban, the fleet will then race to Cape Town, then on to St. Helena, then Recife, Brazil, and then finally to the race's finishing line off of Antigua, which will complete a lap of our beautiful and lonely planet.
Renaud Stitelmann is currently in the lead, followed by Daniel Turner and Keri Harris. (American Joshua Kali is currently sitting in 11th place.)
"It's good and bad in a way," said Turner, describing being able to see Stitelmann's stern light. "It keeps me on my toes... I'm having quite a bit of fun with the competitive thing."
Racecourse standings aside, the fleet is now plying the notorious Indian Ocean, where big low-pressure systems are often the norm. Add in the Agulhas Current, and the sea state can deteriorate quickly, especially for singlehanders racing aboard 19-footers.
Switching gears from offshore racing to inshore sailing, Laura Grondin and her Dark Energy team (Taylor Canfield, Ted Hackney, Ian Liberty, Rick Grondin, and coach Robby Bisi) won the 2025 J/70 World Championships, which was recently hosted by the Yacht Club Argentino. Impressively, Grondin is the first female skipper to have won this hotly contested world-championship title.
"It's been a five-year run," said Grondin in an official event report. "None of this happens by yourself. It takes a team. What makes us world champion? The ability to be resilient. We've stood on a lot of podiums, but being first is different. It just is."
Finally, in America's Cup news, news broke last week that American Magic will not return to represent the USA for AC38.
"After extensive engagement with the Defender, Challenger of Record, and fellow teams, we've concluded that the present structure does not provide the framework for American Magic to operate a highly competitive and financially sustainable campaign for the 38th America's Cup", said Doug DeVos, Team Principal of American Magic, in an official team statement.
"We care deeply about the America's Cup and what it represents," DeVos continued. However, for a team committed to long-term excellence, alignment around financial viability and competitive performance is essential. At this time, we don't believe those conditions are in place for American Magic to challenge."
It will be interesting to see where American Magic goes from here.
May the four winds blow you safely home.
David Schmidt
Sail-World.com North American Editor
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