In February 2018, nine months before the start of the Route du Rhum - Destination Guadeloupe (4 November 2018), the 100 places reserved for the racers had already all been filled! The race organisers - OC Sport Pen Duick, the organising company, in consultation with the city of Saint-Malo and the Guadeloupe region - decided to open 20 more places and increase the number of registrants to 120. An increase which then benefited the Class40 and the Multi Rum category.
However, there will eventually be 122 of them competing in the 40th edition of the mythical transatlantic race, as the organisers revealed a few days ago. Indeed, on the eve of the closing of entries, the organisation found itself faced with a new equation to solve. Of the eight places open for the Ultimate events, two were not filled, while of the seven allocated to the Multi50s, one was vacant.
As a result, it is the IMOCA categories and the Rhum Mono that benefit from these vacant places, thanks to the "communicating vessels" provided for in the notice of race. An increase validated beforehand with the Mayor of Saint-Malo Claude Renoult and his elected representatives.
" In the interest of fairness, we wanted to draw candidates from the two categories that had not yet been covered by an extension. We thus bring the number of candidates in the Rhum Mono category to 17 and in the Imoca category to 23. As far as the latter are concerned, we wanted to be a little more flexible out of solidarity with the Class. With the Barcelona World Race having been cancelled, we didn't want to deprive one or two sailors of the major event of the 2018 - 2019 season explains Mathieu Sarrot, OC Sport Pen Duick Events Director.
However, this increase of 22 skippers will require logistical organisation, so that all the competitors can start from a single starting line, as Jacques Caraës, Race Director explains: "The new 22 skippers will have to be organised logistically, so that all the competitors can start from a single starting line We are currently thinking about the hypothesis of distributing the boats differently on the starting line . The start of all categories will of course always take place at the same time on a single line. However, the fleet, which was already split in two with the multihulls on one side and the monohulls on the other, could make way for new subdivisions, cutting by category and speed potential this line, which should be between 3 and 3.5 miles long"
Registrants
Ultimate: 6 registrants
IMOCA: 24 (Sébastien Destremeau on AlcatrazIt - Force Ocean: category to be defined)
Multi 50 : 6
Class40 : 50
Rum Mono: 17
Rum Multi: 20
Find the list of registered participants on the official website of the race.
