One year ago almost to the day, on the 27th February 2024, after 50 days and 19 hours at sea, Charles Caudrelier won the Arkéa Ultim Challenge-Brest, the first ever single-handed round the world race on an Ultim.
An event as extreme as it was groundbreaking, the idea for which was born more than twenty years ago within the Télégramme group, as Joseph Bizard, managing director of OC Sport, the group’s subsidiary that organises the race, points out. “It was Roland Tresca (then chairman of Pen Duick and deputy director of the Télégramme group) who came up with the idea for this race back in 2004. Two years later, at the finish of the 2006 Route du Rhum, he presented the mayor of Brest François Cuillandre with a project for what could be the next great challenge for the big multihulls of that time: a solo round-the-world regatta. Since then, there have been drafts, numerous exchanges, ups and downs, and it has finally taken nearly two decades for the planets to align for a project of such magnitude: increased reliability of the boats, local authorities committed for the long term, bold private partners.”
All the elements have been brought together to produce a first edition, the start of which was given off the coast of Brest on the 7th January 2024, in brilliant sunshine, inevitably placed under the banner of the unknown for the six solo sailors at the start. “You have to realise that, until then, no latest-generation flying Ultim has managed to complete a round-the-world race, whether crewed or solo,” points out Joseph Bizard. “The challenge of a global event on the biggest ocean boats was both sporting for the sailors and technical for their teams.” At the finish, five of the six pioneers at the start – in order Charles Caudrelier, Thomas Coville, Armel Le Cléac’h, Anthony Marchand and Eric Péron – completed the course, with only Tom Laperche having to retire after eleven days of racing.
“The teams and sailors have really done a superb job in getting these machines to the start line and then, flying, around the world. The possibility of making stopovers has enabled the competitive aspect to be maintained, with constant twists and turns provided by these stops and five competitors out of six finishing, which is quite a feat,” adds the managing director of OC Sport. “The intensity of the racing during the descent of the Atlantic, and in particular the duel between Charles Caudrelier and Tom Laperche, confirmed the extraordinary potential of these machines and the ability of the sailors to race them single-handed.” The tired faces of the skippers on their arrival in Brest, after 50 days at sea for the first and 66 for the fifth, told a lot about the physical and mental resources they had had to draw on to reach the finish, with everyone – skippers, teams and sailors – confiding their pride in having contributed to writing a major new page in ocean racing.
If the race has met the expectations of the skippers, it has also met its public. The village that was set up on the Quai Malbert in Brest attracted more than 150,000 visitors up to the day of the start, 80,000 came then to celebrate the finishes. “The public fervour and the emotional moments shared in the village are some of our fondest memories of ocean racing. The enthusiasm of the visitors, which was greater than expected, continued to grow right up to the finish. The exceptional nature of this race and its pioneering aspect clearly interested the public, to whom we offered an immersive village to enable them to fully understand the race and those involved,” analyses Joseph Bizard.
This interest is confirmed by the numbers, including an audience of over a million viewers for the live coverage of the start on France 3 and 12 million visits to the tracking page. For Jérôme Val, a journalist at Radio France (France Info, France Inter), all the ingredients were in place for the race to receive significant media coverage: “We are a generalist medium with listeners who are not specialists. So the event has to be easily identifiable, and that was the case with the Arkea Ultim Challenge. A sailor sailing around the world, alone aboard a big flying machine: it’s an easy combo to sell to the general public. What’s more, the timing, just after the end-of-year festivities, was favourable.”
On the strength of this first major edition, OC Sport Pen Duick is now looking ahead to the next, which will start in the winter of 2027-2028, with six to eight Ultims to be participating. “The foundations that have been laid will enable us to accelerate each of the pillars of the event and meet the very high expectations that have been generated,” supports Joseph Bizard. “From a sporting point of view, the boats will be more reliable and tested, and the sailors, with four more years of experience, will be ready to take on this new sporting challenge. In terms of the public, the village, which covered 10,000 m2 for the first edition, will be considerably enlarged to welcome more people. Finally, on the media front, we’re also aiming to step up a gear, with a communications strategy that will begin earlier in the event, the aim being to reach a wider audience with a range of high-impact contents.” The roadmap has been mapped out!
Photo : Vincent Olivaud
In partnership with 
