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The race - History of the Route du Rhum

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2002

This seventh edition was the one to smash all the records. In terms of the number of entrants: 58 competitors divided into 6 rankings showing the range of boats sailed was itself a record and a new page of the history of the Rhum. Unfortunately however, there was also a record number of yachtsmen forced to retire, as although 28 boats were to complete the race, only 3 out of 18 reached the Antilles in the masterclass of 60-foot multihulls. It was also the first time that two monohulls were to finish ahead of the multihulls in real time, as a result of the many boats capsizing and suffering damage in the hellish weather conditions.

A double victory for Ellen MacArthur: she won the race in the monohull category, but also achieved the overall best time.
Behind her in another monohull, Mike Golding came in second.
It was Michel Desjoyeaux, the recent winner of the Vendée Globe ahead of Ellen, who after three stopovers for repairs led the multihull rankings following a tough battle with the two runners-up, Marc Guillemot and Lalou Roucayrol. Only six hours separated the monohulls from the multihulls, which illustrated perfectly the progress made in terms of performance by the former and the imperfections of the latter.

Course - "No rest for the sailor or his machine"

Between Saint-Malo and Pointe-à-Pitre, the shortest route (by great circle reckoning: dotted line on the chart) is not always the quickest … Winds and currents represent hurdles that have to be overcome or avoided… Then there are the rivals you have to keep a check on to avoid them getting away from you. Once the ramparts of Saint-Malo have been left behind, the competitors spend their first night in the English Channel before rounding Ushant and its shipping lane. Then there is the Bay of Biscay and usually headwinds and low-pressure areas coming one after another until they reach the Azores, the gateway to the trade winds. Next up in general there is a series of tactical choices to make to get across the high-pressure area with its light winds before picking up speed all the way to Pointe-à-Pitre, as the race record is there to be broken.

The rankings