The Retour à La Base solo IMOCA race from Martinique to Lorient, France, is heating up as the leaders complete their curve around the North Atlantic high-pressure system and start to head towards the east. They are seeking to find the best entry point to catch a ride on the train of fast-moving, low-pressure systems set to carry them rapidly towards Europe. 

According to reports, the speeds on Monday and Tuesday could be high enough to threaten the solo 24-hour record, which has been held for five years by Alex Thomson at 539.71 miles. Jéremie Beyou (Charal) had been leading the race, but in the late afternoon, Briton Sam Goodchild (For The Planet) took the lead as Charal gybed north. 

At four days into the 3,500 miles passage from Fort-de-France, the pace is already telling on boats and skippers. Goodchild revealed that he hoped to get some much-needed rest this afternoon before a week’s onslaught with successive, deeper and more malicious low-pressure systems due through to the finish, which should be Saturday, according to the latest estimates.

Goodchild said, “To be honest, I don’t know what I am doing right, really; I am just happy the boat is going well. But I am a bit tired, so I need to start being a bit careful. Last night was a bit full-on, so I did not get much sleep. I have been trying to catch up on sleep but it really is not easy. It is nicer now, and the wind is more stable, so we had the big sail change this morning, which went relatively well. We are heading more to the east now, which is nice; I am trying to eat properly get some rest and keep going fast. The last two nights have been bad for sleeping, painful, to be honest, with unstable winds and a bad sea state, so I am hopeful. I have put some rice and fish curry on for my Sunday lunch to eat, I am looking forwards to it and then try and get a nap after that.”

Meanwhile, Beyou is still in the race, always around 17-19 nautical miles ahead of Goodchild and Yoann Richomme (Arkéa-Paprec). 

The race is far from over and the sailors are pushing themselves to the limit. As the weather conditions continue to pose a challenge, it remains to be seen who will emerge victorious in this exciting solo race.nd Seb Simon (Groupe Deubril) are more on the outside, positions more fancied by Will Harris, the co-skipper of Malizia-Seaexplorer and a renowned weather expert,

“Going slightly wider will take them north earlier and may mean one less gybe, and they should have a little more pressure.” Says Harris who believes the solo record could well fall, considering 550 miles a realistic mark. “The thing here is if they need to gybe in the 24 hours. Really to maximise the record run it needs to be straight line, especially solo.”

“Between Monday morning and Tuesday, there can be some very nice runs,” explains Christian Dumard, the race meteorologist. “They must manage to sail at more than 22.36 knots to beat the record,” specifies Jacques Caraës assistant to the race director.

The daggerboard boats will also start to accelerate and turn to the right. Louis Duc (Fives Group – Lantana Environnement) is positioned slightly further East than his competitors. Often happy to do his own thing, Duc says he is liking passing through the South-East of Bermuda – “I would have liked to stay round here to see how it is.”

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British skipper Sam Goodchild (32) was injured aboard Leyton during the Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe start from Saint-Malo today.

As soon as the alert was received, CROSS (Centre Régional Opérationnel de Surveillance et de Sauvetage maritimes) sent a doctor to the boat. The skipper is being taken care of by the doctor and his injuries are being assessed before being transferred to an SNSM rescue vessel.

British skipper Sam Goodchild

More information to come.

French-based British skipper Sam Goodchild lines up for his second Route du Rhum as one of the widely tipped favourites to win the Ocean Fifty multihull class. While the quietly spoken, hugely experienced 32-year-old Brit whose formative years were spent on boats in the Caribbean, on the island of Grenada and in the southwest of England, is playing down the dockside and media-room chat in Saint Malo during the final week before this Sunday’s start, he firmly believes he has every chance of his first major ocean racing victory.

Others in the class may have newer more modern boats but Goodchild is happy to be equipped with a solid, fully proven, all-round, optimised boat. He has the hard ocean miles under his belt and is backed by a supportive, well-resourced international partner. This is very much Goodchild’s time to shine. “Yes, I’ve got a chance to win.” He smiles aboard Leyton at the Saint Malo race dock among the eight-boat Ocean Fifty fleet, “ But I’m not the only one. The aim is just to do my best. I dropped out four years ago and I don’t want to end up like that again, but I do want to make the most of my chance now.”

Third on last year’s Transat Jacques Vabre, racing two-handed with the Leyton team’s Aymeric Chapellier, the duo were on the back foot early in the race on a rich-get-richer course to Martinique, but came back from fifth at Cape Finisterre course to be second by the Brazilian coast. But the Route du Rhum is a very different animal; racing solo on the fast, light Ocean Fifty requires maximum attention and focus as the multihulls can be prone to capsizing.

Sam Goodchild’s time to shine onboard the Ocean 50 Leyton in the Route du Rhum Race Photo: Polaryse

“You still have to consider that sailing across the Atlantic is a challenge in itself. And then, when you’re in this solo racing environment, you need to do things very well all the time. There is no room for mistakes. The Route du Rhum happens every four years, and so it’s a big, big event. I want to be the one that comes out on top in the end. And as a team, that’s what we’ve been putting our time and energy into. And believe me, doing it on a multihull puts it into a whole different dimension from doing it on a Figaro or Class40.” Goodchild attests.

"racing solo on the fast, light Ocean Fifty requires maximum attention and focus as the multihulls can be prone to capsizing"

On the 2018 edition, when he raced in Class40 on a boat in the colours of a Netflix series, he was unfortunate to have to retire during the first big storm when the mast of his boat broke. Looking back, he says, “It hurt at the time, but the project was always quite late and last minute. And we knew what caused it, so I got over it relatively quickly, but you learn from it and move on. The most important thing was learning from what happened and doing things differently next time.” Goodchild recalls, “ And this race is followed by the whole sailing world. Everyone really wants to perform. We are driven towards the highest competition there is so for us, that’s the Route du Rhum. It’s a big challenge on this multihull, and I’m really looking forward to it. Two years ago, I didn’t really know if I would take this on, so I have spent two years breaking this down bit by bit, step by step, to get here, and now I feel comfortable to go.”