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Loïck Peyron (inset) and Banque Populaire set off for what turned out to be a brief sprint to Guadeloupe. Remarkably this was Peyron’s first Rhum victory in six attempts. He founded his early reputation finishing fifth in the stormy 1986 Rhum on the old 50ft cat Lada Poch and most famously gave a calm running commentary as his Orma 60 Fujifilm broke up around him in the 2002 event
FRANCE The master!
October was a fine month in Brittany, but autumn then arrived in earnest just in time for the departure of the 10th edition of the 3,542nm solo Route du Rhum. When the start gun sounded the breeze was only 15-17kt, but a tough, complicated first night at sea was in prospect, a precursor to 36 hours of changeable breezes and big, unruly seas. The giant trimaran Banque Populaire(designed by VPLP – the winner of the last edition when she was named Groupama 3) sailed by 54-year-old Loïck Peyron was not the first of the 91 boats to round the buoy at Cap Fréhel but she rapidly took the lead, rush- ing out of the Channel… and never gave it up. The key moment occurred when approaching Madeira at the end of day 2; BPled the larger 40m Spindrift 2 with a 60-mile margin, which is actu- ally very little on boats that average at least 25kt, and was 160 miles ahead of the MOD 70 Paprec Recyclageat the back of the Ultime fleet. The next day and by the afternoon, BPwas 180 miles in front of Spindriftwith Paprec400 miles further back. As we say in France, ‘La messe était dite’ (the game was over). So the brilliant Loïck Peyron pressed on for his first victory in the Route du Rhum after only a week at sea – in 7d 15h 8s to be precise – knocking two hours off the existing record set by Lionel Lemonchois in 2006 on the Orma 60 Gitana 11. It is surely remarkable that this was a first Rhum success for Peyron; his best previous result was fifth. And he did it on the winning boat of four years ago… some kind of a repeat of Laurent Bourgnon’s two wins in a row on the same boat in 1994 and 1998 – except that Laurent was onboard both times. Remember too that only a few weeks before the start Loïck was entering the Rhum on his small yellow trimaran Happy, similar to Mike Birch’s Olympus, winner of the first Route du Rhum in 1978. Then Banque Populaire called him in September, because Armel Le Cléac’h had badly injured his right hand during a family holiday and the bank needed an experienced sailor to helm
12 SEAHORSE
their 100ft trimaran. Loïck said yes and thanks to that decision was the first one to drink a rum cocktail at Pointe à Pitre on Monday 10 November. After a week and a half at sea Loïck should theoretically have been sailing somewhere off the Canary islands on his small tri… instead he was busy doing TV and radio commentary on the rest of the fleet!
Now let us look at what became of some of Loïck’s rivals: Thomas Coville was a clear competitor to Loïck Peyron before hitting a cargo ship in the Channel 10 hours after the start. The big Sodebotrimaran was sailing under three reefs and ORC jib, pushing hard while trying to regain the lead she had passed to Banque Populaire. In the collision the trimaran lost the front of its starboard float back to the crossbeam while the central hull was also damaged. Thomas explained later: ‘I heard the alarm to charge the batteries – I was surprised as we’d only been sail- ing nine hours. So I came inside to start the engine, then went back into the cockpit to adjust the throttle. When I raised my head I saw a black wall passing in front of me… we struck it right at the very back.’ Thomas had seen two freighters in the vicinity on his AIS screen when he went below but probably misjudged the closing speed… his trimaran was doing at least 20kt and the cargo ship about 18. Vincent Riou was sitting comfortably in second place behind François Gabart’s Macif in the nine-strong Imoca 60 fleet. The weather was bad and the sea in Biscay was quite rough. The PRBskipper told us: ‘Coming off a wave, I heard a strange noise at the back of the boat and thought it was a problem with the rudders. I checked them and it was all OK.
‘I heard another loud noise and then I realised that it was the bottom of the sidewall of the ballast tank that had separated from the hull bottom and the water was now being emptied into the boat. Why it happened now, I have no idea.’ Vincent had also suffered damage to his mainsail track and with no chance of winning the race he retired.
After a week at sea François Gabart was still leading the
CHRISTOPHE LAUNAY
STEPHANIE BILLERANT/DPPI
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