The Route du Rhum 2026 starts from Saint-Malo at 13:02 on Sunday 1 November, with 118 solo skippers in 6 classes racing 3,542 nautical miles to Pointe-à-Pitre in Guadeloupe. This is the 13th edition, and Charles Caudrelier’s 2022 time of 6 days 19 hours 47 minutes 25 seconds is the record to beat.
Updated 20 September 2026. The start is 42 days away, so everything below is a preview and none of it is a result. I will update this page with finishing times and the final entry list once the fleet is on its way.
What the race is
The Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe is a solo, non-stop, unassisted transatlantic race from Saint-Malo in Brittany to Pointe-à-Pitre in Guadeloupe, sailed every 4 years since 1978. Six very different classes share one start line, from 32-metre foiling trimarans down to 40-year-old production boats.
The 2026 fleet by class
The organisers announced the selected fleet on 16 April 2026. These are the numbers they published:
| Class | Entries | What the boats are |
|---|---|---|
| Ultim | 6 | Foiling trimarans up to 32m long and 23m wide |
| Ocean Fifty | 11 | 50ft (about 15m) one-design-ish trimarans, top speeds near 40 knots |
| IMOCA | 26 | 60ft foiling monohulls, the Vendée Globe boats |
| Class40 | 49 | 40ft monohulls with a strict box rule and a cost cap |
| Vintage Multi | 13 | Older multihulls outside the current pro classes |
| Vintage Mono | 13 | Older monohulls, many of them former race boats |
| Total | 118 | One start line, one gun |
Treat the class splits as provisional. Entries stay subject to validation under the notice of race, wildcards were still available through the summer, and the published counts have moved since April. A mid-August tally had 7 Ultims, 23 IMOCAs and 14 boats in each vintage class, while the IMOCA class website was listing 22 registered IMOCAs in September. The headline figure of 118 has held.
The favourites, class by class
Ultim
Six boats, and the winner of the race overall will almost certainly come from this group. Charles Caudrelier defends the title he won in 2022 and also won the Arkéa Ultim Challenge-Brest solo round the world. He is doing it on a new boat, Gitana 18, which is the obvious question mark against him: a first ocean race on a brand new 32-metre trimaran is a different problem from a second one.
Armel Le Cléac’h (Maxi Banque Populaire XI) is starting his 5th Route du Rhum and has never won it, which is the kind of statistic that eventually breaks. Thomas Coville (Sodebo Ultim 3) is on his 8th. Tom Laperche (SVR-Lazartigue) is the youngest skipper in the class at 28. Anthony Marchand has the 2022 winning boat, now called Actual Ultim 4, and Louis Burton, who is from Saint-Malo, moves up from IMOCA on Armand Thiery.
IMOCA
The deepest fleet in the race and a championship round in the IMOCA Globe Series. Sam Goodchild (Macif Santé Prévoyance) won the Défi Azimut 48 Hours and sits 2nd in the Globe Series standings on 280 points. Francesca Clapcich (11th Hour Racing) leads that championship on 356 points, and Ambrogio Beccaria is 3rd on 245 after winning the Vendée Arctique.
Jérémie Beyou (Charal) is the other name most often put forward, after a Transat Café L’Or win and a rebuilt hull. Thomas Ruyant, who won the IMOCA class in 2022, is back with TR Racing on a new boat, as is Sébastien Simon (Groupe Dubreuil Air Caraïbes). Boris Herrmann brings Team Malizia’s new IMOCA. Violette Dorange and Élodie Bonafous finished 3rd and 4th in the Vendée Arctique and are quick enough to win a light-airs edition.
A non-foiler has not won the IMOCA class since 2018, which is worth remembering before you back one of the older boats.
Ocean Fifty
Eleven trimarans and the tightest racing in the fleet. In 2022 Erwan Le Roux won this class by 18 minutes after 10 days at sea. He is back on Plastic Odyssey Fifty looking for a third Rhum win after 2014 and 2022. Thibaut Vauchel-Camus (Solidaires en Peloton) won the 2023 Transat Jacques Vabre in the class. Basile Bourgnon (Edenred Enjoy Racing) is 24 and the youngest skipper in the whole race.
The class recently produced 5 different Grand Prix winners across 2 events with 4 points covering the top 3 overall, and 7 of the 11 skippers have never raced a Rhum in an Ocean Fifty. Picking a winner here is guesswork.
Class40
49 boats, the biggest class in the race and the hardest to call. The names put forward most often are Corentin Douguet, who has finished 1st or 2nd in every race on his new boat, Fabien Delahaye and Ian Lipinski. Vincent Riou, Alexis Loison and Mikael Mergui are also entered. The class40.com view is that more than a dozen skippers could win it, and on past form that is not padding.
Vintage Multi and Vintage Mono
These two classes are where the race keeps its history. Francis Joyon, who won the race outright in 2018, is entered in Vintage Multi, and Jean Le Cam is in Vintage Mono. The oldest boat in the fleet is Echo Mer, built in 1980 as Kriter VIII, starting its 7th Route du Rhum. The age range across all 118 skippers runs 47 years, from Bourgnon at 24 to Charlie Capelle at 71.
The course and the distance
The theoretical course is 3,542 nautical miles, about 6,560 km, Saint-Malo to Pointe-à-Pitre. Nobody sails that. The route out of the Channel approaches, across the Bay of Biscay and past Cape Finisterre is where the weather decisions get made, and the fast boats routinely sail a long way further than the rhumb line to stay in front of a depression.
Solo, no stops, no outside assistance. Routing software is used ashore by the teams but the skipper sails the boat alone for the whole crossing.
The record to beat
Charles Caudrelier holds the outright course record: 6 days 19 hours 47 minutes 25 seconds, set on Maxi Edmond de Rothschild in 2022. That took nearly 19 hours off Francis Joyon’s 2018 mark of 7 days 14 hours 21 minutes 47 seconds.
The 2022 winning times in each class are the benchmarks the rest of the fleet will be measured against:
| Class | 2022 winner | Boat | Elapsed time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ultim | Charles Caudrelier | Maxi Edmond de Rothschild | 6d 19h 47m 25s |
| Ocean Fifty | Erwan Le Roux | Koesio | 10d 21h 35m 52s |
| IMOCA | Thomas Ruyant | LinkedOut | 11d 17h 36m 25s |
| Class40 | Yoann Richomme | Paprec-Arkéa | 14d 3h 8m 40s |
| Rhum Multi | Loïc Escoffier | Lodigroup | 16d 6h 37m 23s |
| Rhum Mono | Jean-Pierre Dick | Notre Méditerranée-Ville de Nice | 16d 13h 57m 51s |
Richomme’s Class40 time cut roughly 2 days off his own 2018 winning time in the same class.
How long the crossing takes
Plan on the leaders arriving about a week after the start and the back of the fleet taking 3 weeks or more. In 2022 the class winners spanned 6 days 19 hours to 16 days 14 hours, and the finish line stayed open until 7 December, 28 days after a start that had itself been postponed to 9 November by a storm in the Channel.
Rough guide by class, weather permitting:
- Ultim: 7 days or under if the weather cooperates
- Ocean Fifty: 10 to 12 days
- IMOCA: 11 to 14 days
- Class40: 14 to 18 days
- Vintage classes: 16 to 20 days and sometimes longer
A November Atlantic can wreck those numbers in either direction. 2018 and 2022 both produced early-race carnage in the Bay of Biscay, and only 103 of 138 starters finished in 2022.
The race villages in Saint-Malo and Guadeloupe
The Saint-Malo village opens on Tuesday 20 October and runs to the start on 1 November, 13 days. It covers about 70,000 m² along the quays, entry is free, and all 118 boats sit in the basins where you can walk the pontoons. Organisers expect around 1.5 million visitors, so go early in the day or early in the run. A new area called Terre de Départ is dedicated to Breton maritime heritage.
Getting there: the walled city has very limited parking during the village and the organisers are pushing bikes, scooters and public transport, with cycle parking at the entrances.
The Guadeloupe village opens on 6 November and spreads across 3 sites: the Mémorial ACTe in Pointe-à-Pitre, which is where the finish line is, the Marina de Bas-du-Fort at Le Gosier, and Basse-Terre. It runs about 3 weeks and draws roughly 305,000 visitors. Finishers arrive at all hours, and the crowd turns out for the last boat as well as the first.
Start day in Saint-Malo
The gun is at 13:02 on Sunday 1 November. The morning before it matters as much: the boats have to lock out of the Vauban and Duguay-Trouin basins and work their way to the start area, and with 118 entries that takes hours. The lock-out is a better spectacle than the start itself if you are on foot.
- From the ramparts and the quays you get the lock-out and the fleet forming up.
- The start line is laid out in the bay, not in front of the walled city. Recent editions have used an area off the Pointe du Grouin near Cancale, so check the official race documents in the last week of October before committing to a viewpoint.
- Cap Fréhel gives you the fleet later in the afternoon as the classes come past on their way west.
- 1 November is a public holiday in France. Trains into Saint-Malo and accommodation in the town sell out months ahead.
How to follow Route du Rhum 2026 live
The official cartography on routedurhum.com is the one to use. It gives positions, speeds, class rankings and distance-to-finish, updated through the day, with a replay function once boats are offshore. The 2022 edition ran its tracker on a Georacing platform under the race domain; check the race site in late October for the exact 2026 link rather than bookmarking an old one.
- Official site and cartography: routedurhum.com
- IMOCA class tracking and rankings: imoca.org
- Class40 rankings and race reports: class40.com
- The race YouTube channel carries the start, the finishes and daily video bulletins.
Position reports are usually issued on a fixed schedule rather than continuously, which is why the tracker can look frozen for an hour. It is not broken.
What is still unconfirmed
Three things I would not treat as settled on 20 September 2026. The class-by-class entry counts are still moving and a handful of entries were listed as to be announced. Two skippers, Alexia Barrier and Guirec Soudée, have been named in connection with an Ultim start without a completed registration at the 100-day mark. And the exact position of the start line has not been published.
I will update this page after the start with the confirmed starter list, and again with elapsed times as boats reach Pointe-à-Pitre.
