The Extraordinary Solo Race Around the World - Arkea Ultim Challenge Brest 2024

It's January 2024. It's mid-winter in Brittany on the west coast of France, an area that's well known for taking the brunt of some wild Atlantic weather. And we're impressed for the start of what some are describing as the most extreme race in offshore sailing, the Arcea Ultime Challenge, a new solo non-stop race around the world in 32 meter long foiling trimarans. A fleet race with Ultimes has never been done before and perhaps for very good reason. There are very few people in the world that have ever considered taking this on. In fact only four people have ever achieved a non-stop lap of the planet in a multi-hull. So what is the Arcea Ultime Challenge? It's simple, one lap of the planet starting and finishing here in Brest, one boat per team and one sailor on each and there are six teams competing. Simple, except of course it's not. The route is 24,000 miles heading east via the Cape of Good Hope and Cape Horn and 60% of the course is in the infamous Southern Ocean. It's a race of endurance but also a highly tactical one. So what is an Ultime? In short it's a 32 meter long trimaran. There are a set of rules within which teams can create their custom machines, but broadly speaking an Ultime is 32 meters long, 23 meters wide and weighs 16 tons. And the modern ones like Banque Populaire 11 fly on hydrofoils. Typically they cruise at between 30 and 40 knots and in perfect conditions Banque Populaire has exceeded 50 knots. They are quite simply exceptional machines and to handle them alone is beyond comprehension. But that's also true for solo circumnavigations. When Sir Robin Knox Johnson made history in 1969 by winning the first ever solo race around the world, the Sunday Times Golden Globe race, he did so after 312 days at sea. The current record for a solo lap of the planet under sail is 42 days 16 hours and 40 minutes. I'll say that again 312 days in 1969, today 42 and a half days. Even more incredible is that this solo record is only one and a half days slower than the fully crewed one. That's how much things have moved on. Given the current records you might think there's little chance of anyone going any quicker, especially because when these records were set teams have been waiting for the perfect conditions to slingshot them on their way. The six teams that are taking part in this race were not going to have that luxury. Their start date was set for the 7th of January. But we also know that in the last few years these 32 meter trimarans have come a long way. Not least of all they can rise up on hydrofoils and achieve staggering new speeds. We also know that the pressure of a race at any level often delivers another level of performance from the competitors. And it's for these reasons among others that this race has attracted so much interest. Armel Le Cleac'h is one of the favourites for the race. Not only is he one of the most experienced skippers, but Banque Populaire 11 is one of the He's no stranger to racing around the world alone. He's been on the podium in three Vendee Globe races and won it in 2017. A victory that also still stands as the fastest solo monohull around the world at just over 74 days. But what has drawn the most attention recently was winning the double-handed Transat Jacques Vabre in Banque Populaire. Not only was this an impressive achievement but it also says much about the performance of his boat. In fact he's the reason we've come to Brest. Armel has been a Musto ambassador for 15 years and Musto were keen for us to come and talk to him before he set off. So we did. You are no stranger to sailing around the world on your own. You've done it the Vendee Globe three times. Yes. Won it in 2017. The record still stands. Yes. So you're no stranger to that. How different is doing it in this? It is very difficult to manage this boat alone because the boat is very big and when the wind is more strong if you don't change the different sails you can be in danger. So first difficulty and the second is is the speed of the boat because it is a flying boat with when you have a 15 knots wind you can fly and so you have a 30 knots speed so it changes the capacity of your boat to to cross the Atlantic or to cross the different oceans so you change very quickly the different weather system forecast so you need to have capacity to to prepare the next step and to use the boat so you need to have experience and this experience is very important yes. Give us an idea of how you live on board. What's your watch system? How often do you sleep and for how long do you sleep and how does your watch system work? My day on Banc Populaire is a classic day is when I'm alone I have some time to to sleep so it's not a long sleeping so just between 20, 40, 50 minutes and several times in one day so I have a buzzer and and a watch so I can put that and and I am on my bed just here it's not the same as that at home but it's very comfortable and I can put some alarms on the different problem you can have on on your on your way so you can have a collision on the wind is changing and a lot of time it's in the cockpit because I have a seat and I can see the different captor on the boat we have we have 200 captor on the boat so we have a long many many many numbers and many many information but it's very important so I can like a pilot of a plane we have a lot of things you need to do all the day all the day and and when you have some time to sleep you can you need to sleep. As speeds have increased in the offshore world clothing has changed too. The ability to move more freely may sound obvious but with sailors spending an increasing amount of time below decks yet still needing to work outside in difficult conditions developing the right clothing has been a big challenge. Sailing around the world will take Armel through an extreme range of conditions from freezing cold and staggeringly wet to unbearably hot. Broadly speaking Armel's musto clothing consists of the following. In the tropics he'll wear a sunblock dynamic short sleeve top and Gore-Tex shorts. As conditions get colder he then moves to an HPX merino base layer long sleeve top and a Gore-Tex Infinium Primaloft mid-layer salopette. Then for outer layers he uses the HPX Gore-Tex Pro Ocean Smock and Ocean Racer boots. Yes the clothes have changed during the last 10 years. When I arrived we prepared my second Vendée Globe with the Banque Populaire team and the IMOCA it was a water boot. When you are on the deck you have millions of liters of water on your body so you need to have a good protection because a lot of time you are awake and so it's not comfortable and the clothes were very heavy so when you come back in your boat you change and so for that musto was the best one because they have the technical clothes. You can do a race like Vendée Globe and with the evolution of the boat now we have a lot of time in the cabin crew and in cockpit and now with the Ultim you have not the problem of the water just with the wind but you need now to have a lot of time with physical movement so you need to have some clothes we are technical adapt for that. So now with the evolution of the speed of the boat we have another problem it's the impact if you have a speed you are in 35 or 40 knots and you have a bad speed with a big wave if you have no protection on your body you can hurt you so we have developed with Musto some different protection like that on this one so we have different things on my jacket. So what about the machine? Banque Populaire is the latest of her generation and she's not only impressive but incredibly complex. Logistics manager Erwan Steff gave us a tour. Here you've got like your gymnastic place you've got your house you've got your yeah you've got more or less a house only here in the four four square meters where he's gonna live he will not go down downstairs because there is nothing except the technical parts where he's gonna live here so here is like the main part because nothing is like electrical it's all by hand so there's only two things electrical it's like autopilots and also the water maker otherwise you have to work with this this is a trim from the dagger board plus negative and so they are sitting here and you put your seat here between the two things here and you just like trim here. Really and that dagger board is and that is the ride height yes exactly plus you go more up down you go down right as simple as that yeah exactly here you've got your office to work so if you want to work it's going to be here you've got your kitchen and here you've got all your communication system over there and here you've got your bedroom here and the food is already ready here so there's a lot of jelly babies in there already yeah he loves it this is a day six and he's got everything on his back for a day oh that's right the day six here the man the machine and the mission Armel Le Cleac'h's campaign to win this unique race is a fascinating story but as the six competitors knew only too well as the clock counted down to the start planning preparation and previous records count for a lot but a race of this type played out at the staggering speeds that these incredible machines are famous for the Arkea Ultime Challenge would be a step into the unknown for all