Alex Thomson will start the Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe solo transatlantic race on Sunday 4th November armed with what, in Hugo Boss, he considers to be the fastest, best-optimised IMOCA 60 in the race's record-sized fleet of 20 boats.
He has the experience of back-to-back podium finishes in consecutive Vendee Globes, sailing's pinnacle solo race, but still the 44-year-old British skipper is not tipped by French experts as a favourite to win this 3,542-nautical mile race from Saint Malo in Brittany to Guadeloupe in the Caribbean.
Welshman Thomson, who was schooled in County Cork and, who, with Manager Stewart Hosford, were Afloat.ie Sailors of the Month, last January, is part of an international line up for this year's race that sadly does not include any Irish entry.
"It does not bother me what the perception is in France," a relaxed Thomson said in Saint Malo aboard his race boat. "I have had a reputation for being a maverick and I used to love it and there were times when I used to hate it. But now, it does not bother me. I don't really care. At least people think I am too fast rather than too slow."
For many years Thomson was considered the outsider in IMOCAs, a hothead racer who pushed too hard and broke too many boats. Then, in the 2016-17 Vendee Globe he pushed winner Armel Le Cleac'h all the way to the finish, despite having broken a foil less than two weeks into the 74-day contest.
As Thomson bids to win the Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe at his first attempt at the race after 15 years in the IMOCA class, his French rivals are according him plenty respect, even if the commentariat of French sailing do not.
Chief among them is Jeremie Beyou who finished third behind Thomson in the last Vendee Globe and who's Charal is the only latest-generation foiling IMOCA to have been launched since the last race.
Just along the race dock from Thomson, Beyou, a three-time winner of the Solitaire du Figaro who was part of the Volvo Ocean Race-winning Dongfeng crew, spoke of his admiration for his British rival.
"Alex's will be the team we are watching closest as we move towards the Vendee Globe," Beyou said. "I think his new boat will be a similar philosophy to mine; you need to have a quick downwind boat, but right now Alex is my closest rival. He has the money, the experience now and he is so very highly motivated to win. I think he can push the boat very hard and is fast.
"On my side, doing the Volvo was a big step because you really have to push hard; you have to remove that part of your brain that holds you back and just get on with it and push. I have definitely changed. Alex maybe had that quality already before and so maybe we are converging in our approach a bit.
"And I adore what he does for the class globally," added Beyou. "He is a great ambassador for this sport of extreme solo sailing and he puts it in front of a big global audience and that is what we want. And as a sailor he has matured and is better able to regulate his pace. Before, in France, we would call him a hothead or speak about his foot which was too heavy on the gas, but in the last two Vendee Globes he has more than proved himself."
Beyou jokes: "Solo sailing was supposed to be a French thing but Alex is making it otherwise."
The race was first held in 1978 and in its 40th anniversary year, the race is celebrating record entries with 124 male and female skippers in six classes taking to the start line on November 4, 2018.
More on the race here
