Some people chase their dream for a season. Alexis Loison chased his for two decades. The 42-year-old French skipper from Cherbourg finally won La Solitaire du Figaro in 2025 on his 19th attempt, taking first, second and first across the race's three legs — a near-total domination of one of sailing's most punishing events.
The Solitaire du Figaro is not for the faint-hearted. It's a solo, offshore race in identical one-design boats, run through the hugely tidal, tactical waters of the English Channel and Brittany coast. The fleet is often separated by minutes, so a single bad manoeuvre can drop you down the leaderboard — or onto the rocks. Loison calls the English Channel his playground, and it shows: in 2025 he worked out he needed to lead after the first 24 hours of the final leg, pushed hard through that first night, and never looked back.
The win capped an extraordinary 2025. He also claimed his second overall Rolex Fastnet Race — fittingly finishing in Cherbourg, his home town and the new finish port — and became part of the first double-handed team to win the Rolex Sydney Hobart Race overall, sailing with Jiang Lin on Min River. A new Class40 and this year's Route du Rhum are next.
His backstory reads like a sailing novel. Raised in Cherbourg by a keen amateur racer father, he was cruising to Scotland before his first birthday and spent weekends crossing the Channel. His grandmother cut out the Figaro newspaper's race coverage for him as a boy — he still keeps the clippings. The breakthrough came via the Pôle Finistère training centre in 2012, where he shared a flat with fellow future stars Paul Meilhat, Yoann Richomme and Corentin Horeau, debriefing over pasta every night. Results and sponsors followed, though heartbreak struck in 2023 when a wind shift at the finish cost him a 15-hour lead.
His philosophy is refreshingly blunt: solo racing forces you to be good at everything — helming, strategy, sail trim, weather — with no one to lean on. He credits the Figaro circuit as the best ocean racing school in the world, and obsesses over details like a perfectly optimised boat, down to seaweed on the rudders.
For travellers, the story is a great excuse to follow the race itself. The Solitaire stops in ports across France, Ireland and beyond, and the village events that accompany each stopover are free, festive and very French — a genuine spectacle even if you've never set foot on a sailboat. Cherbourg, Loison's home port, makes a rewarding Normandy base: working harbour, wartime history and easy Channel crossing access.
Why it matters: great sport stories are often gateways to places. The harbours, race villages and coastal towns of the Figaro circuit — from Roscoff to Concarneau — are some of France's most atmospheric waterside destinations, best experienced when the racing fleet rolls in.
Credit: Yachting World
