Arkéa Ultim Challenge: start, route, competitors and reward, what you need to know about the event race

The Arkéa Ultim Challenge is the first edition of the Round the World Sailing Tour in a giant trimaran and solo. The race will start at 1:30 p.m. from Brest on January 7 with a scheduled return to the Breton city after following a route similar to that of the Vendée Globe, from west to east. The competitors will have to descend towards the Atlantic, pass the Cape of Good Hope, then Cape Leeuwin and finally the famous Cape Horn, leaving them to port. They will then go up the South Atlantic to make a final sprint towards Brest. That's around 40,000 km of journey.

The Ultim class boats were authorized to participate, a collective bringing together giant trimarans 32 meters long and 23 meters wide equipped with foils allowing them to rise above the sea and reach speeds around 90 km/h. There are therefore no monohulls entered in this event.

Six sailors will depart from Brest next weekend. Armel Le Cléac'h (Maxi Banque Populaire The top three are favorites at the controls of the fastest machines in the class on paper, with perhaps a very slim advantage over Le Cléac'h, recent winner of the Transat Jacques Vabre. Coville's boat, very reliable like all the other Ultims, is perhaps a notch below the trio mentioned in terms of pure performance, but Sodebo seems to have a head start on the other two projects by Marchand and Péron.

It is impossible to answer this question even if the skippers as a whole estimate that the round-the-world trip can be completed in around 45 days. This generation of trimaran is the fastest ever seen at sea. The solo record established by François Gabart (with Macif) dates from 2017 in exactly 42 days 16 hours 40 minutes and 35 seconds but it was not within the framework of a race but during an individual attempt against the clock. On paper, the candidates for victory can go as quickly as Gabart but on a world tour, numerous incidents can occur and the machines, put to the test in the southern seas, could suffer from repeated breakages. This is also the big question surrounding this first edition: how reliable will the boats be? The regulations do not authorize crossing the finish line beyond 100 days spent at sea.

We are not going to go into details, but with the exception of the obligatory crossing points mentioned above, it must be remembered that skippers have the right to stop for repairs, unlike the stopovers prohibited on the Vendée Globe, of which the next edition will be launched in the fall of 2024. The risk of breakage being too high with a fleet of only six boats, it was essential to give the green light to competitors to repair if necessary. There is one constraint, however: each stopover must last at least 24 hours.

Also readTransat Jacques Vabre: who are the big winners and losers in Ultim before the world tour?

Also note that a ghost mode is authorized. Each browser will be able to activate it twice throughout the event. For 24 hours, the boat's geographic position will be hidden from the public and its competitors. The skipper will have notified the race direction twelve hours before the activation of this mode which will therefore make it possible to hide his strategy and spice up the debates. Well, we hope so.

The sailor who wins the event will receive a nice jackpot of 200,000 euros. This is the largest gain ever offered in an ocean race. 200,000 euros is also the amount that must be deposited to have the right to register for the event.