Seven minutes and eight seconds. That is the margin the 2018 Route du Rhum came down to after 3,542 nautical miles of solo Atlantic sailing, and it is why this edition still gets brought up whenever the race is discussed. With the fleet due to leave Saint-Malo again this November, it is worth going back over what actually happened in 2018, because the storm at the start explains as much as the finish did.
The 2018 edition in four lines
- 123 boats at the start, split into six classes instead of the five used in 2014.
- An Atlantic depression in the first days sent close to 50 boats into shelter or back to port.
- Joyon, then 62, won on a boat three tonnes heavier than the one chasing him.
- The finish deadline had to be pushed back by five days to absorb the damage.
The storm that shaped the race before it had properly started
The fleet sailed straight into a deep low as it came out of the Bay of Biscay. By the third day the damage list was long: close to fifty boats were either sheltering along the French and Spanish coasts or heading back with technical problems, three of them Ultimes, six IMOCAs, twelve Class40s and twenty-seven in the two Rhum classes combined.
The most serious incident came on 6 November, when Armel Le Cléac’h capsized the 100-foot Banque Populaire IX after a float broke away in 30 to 35 knots and five-metre seas, roughly 340 miles north-east of the Azores. He was recovered safely from inside the central hull. Isabelle Joschke lost her rig in the IMOCA class, and Sam Goodchild was dismasted on Narcos Mexico while climbing through the Class40 fleet. Organisers extended the finish deadline by five days.
This is the part of offshore racing that television never shows well. The Atlantic in November does not care what class you paid for, and a race is often decided by who was in the right position when the front came through.
Seven minutes, after eleven days of leading
Gabart led for most of the crossing on MACIF, a newer foil-assisted trimaran, and arrived at Guadeloupe with damage aboard. Joyon, sailing the older and heavier IDEC SPORT, the same hull Peyron had raced to victory in 2014 under different colours, came round the island the other way and caught him in the light and shifting air off Basse-Terre.
What makes it a classic is not the margin alone. It is that the slower, heavier boat won, sailed by the oldest man in the class, on a course where the last twenty miles regularly undo eleven days of work.
| Class | Winner | Boat | Elapsed time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ultime | Francis Joyon | IDEC SPORT | 7 d 14 h 21 min 47 s |
| Multi50 | Armel Tripon | Réauté Chocolat | 11 d 7 h 32 min 40 s |
| IMOCA 60 | Paul Meilhat | SMA | 12 d 11 h 23 min 18 s |
| Class40 | Yoann Richomme | Veedol AIC | 16 d 3 h 22 min 44 s |
Damien Seguin, sixth and not a footnote
Damien Seguin finished sixth in IMOCA aboard Groupe APICIL, in 14 days, 18 hours, 55 minutes and 2 seconds. He came to the class the year before after winning the 2017 Tour de France à la Voile, having already collected three Paralympic sailing medals in the 2.4mR: gold in Athens, gold in Rio, silver in Beijing.
Sixth place in a fleet that lost boats to hull delamination, keel hydraulics and steering failures is a serious result on its own terms. It also settled a question that the offshore world had been circling for years, and Seguin went on to sail the Vendée Globe.
The names this race is built on
The Route du Rhum has run every four years since 1978, and it accumulated its legend early. Mike Birch won that first edition after 23 days at sea, taking it by 98 seconds on a 12-metre trimaran against a much larger monohull. Florence Arthaud became the first woman to win it in 1990, reaching Pointe-à-Pitre in 14 days, 10 hours and 10 minutes. Laurent Bourgnon took it twice, in 1994 and 1998. Lionel Lemonchois set the benchmark of his era in 2006 with 7 days, 17 hours, 19 minutes and 6 seconds.
Put Joyon’s 2018 time next to Lemonchois’s and you get a fair measure of twelve years of multihull development: about three hours quicker, on a race that is decided by weather windows as much as by design.
Where the race stands now
The 12th edition ran in 2022, its start pushed back from 6 to 9 November by weather, which tells you something about how often November on this coast has the last word. The 13th edition leaves Saint-Malo on Sunday 1 November 2026 at 13:02, again bound for Pointe-à-Pitre, with 117 solo sailors entered across Ultim, IMOCA, Ocean Fifty, Class40, Vintage Multi and Vintage Mono. The race village in Saint-Malo opens on 20 October.
Why is it called the Route du Rhum?
Because of the finish. The course runs from Brittany to Guadeloupe, following the old sugar and rum trade route across the Atlantic, and the race has kept the name since 1978.
Can amateurs really enter?
Yes, and that is the point of the Rhum classes, which sit alongside the professional fleets. The event has always mixed fully funded campaigns with skippers who paid their own way, which is a large part of why it holds its audience.
Is Joyon’s record still standing?
His 7 days, 14 hours, 21 minutes and 47 seconds set the reference in 2018. Records in this race move when the weather allows a fast crossing rather than on a schedule, so the honest answer is to check the class results after each edition.
What makes a boat good at crossing oceans
Racing multihulls are one answer. For anyone thinking about the same ocean at a more civilised pace, the comparison is worth reading.
Updated August 2026. Results, elapsed times, entry numbers and incident details for the 2018 Route du Rhum come from race records and contemporary sailing press coverage of the 11th edition; historical winners and times refer to the published results of the 1978, 1990, 1994, 1998 and 2006 editions; 2026 start date, entry number and class list follow the official race announcement for the 13th edition. Entry lists change up to the start.