One of ocean racing's biggest and fastest machines is lying on its side in the North Atlantic. Maxi Banque Populaire XI, a 100-foot foiling trimaran, capsized around 5:30 a.m. local time roughly 550 nautical miles northwest of the Azores, while racing solo across the Atlantic in the Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe.
The good news: skipper Armel Le Cléac'h is safe inside the inverted boat and uninjured. He triggered his distress beacon and is in touch with his shore team, while a rescue coordinated by France's CROSS Jobourg and MRCC Boston gets underway. At 42 degrees north, he's also facing colder water than a typical tradewinds route — a factor rescue planners will be watching.
Le Cléac'h wasn't alone in trouble. He'd been duelling Tom Laperche (SVR-Lazartigue) at the front of the Ultim class, and Laperche's radio report painted a picture of wildly unstable conditions: wind swinging from zero to 30 knots in the dark, small low-pressure pockets leaving the giant trimarans nearly becalmed under full sail. The unusual North Atlantic high-pressure systems have pushed the whole fleet far northwest of the usual course — and the casualty list shows it.
Charles Caudrelier retired his brand-new Gitana 18 north of the Azores after tearing the composite trailing edge off its port foil shaft and ripping away its hydraulic hoses — damage the team confirmed was not from a collision, but from pushing unprecedented technology hard. Anthony Marchand's Actual Ultim 4 sits in Galway, Ireland, also out. Earlier in the race, veteran Francis Joyon capsized his ORMA trimaran and was rescued safely, Initiatives Coeur collided with the 75ft trimaran Use It Again just after the start, and race favourite Jérémie Beyou quit for medical reasons.
Why should a holiday site care? The Route du Rhum finishes in Guadeloupe, and it's one of the few top-tier sailing events ordinary travellers can actually plan around. Pointe-à-Pitre turns into a festival every four years when the solo skippers arrive from Saint-Malo, with free access to the pontoons, live screens and a genuinely carnival atmosphere in the French Caribbean. This edition's drama — capsizes, rescues and retires scattered from Ireland to the mid-Atlantic — is a reminder of what these sailors go through before they pop the champagne in the tropics. If a race finish lines up with your winter-sun window, it's an easy excuse for a Guadeloupe trip. Source: Yachting World.
