High stakes and High Seas: 18 IMOCA boats battle at the start of the Transat Café l'OR
by Ed Gorman / IMOCA Globe Series 24 Oct 16:16 BST
26 October 2025
Transat Café l'OR © Jean-Marie Liot / Transat Jacques Vabre
The final IMOCA race of the 2025 season gets under way from Le Havre for Martinique in the Caribbean on Sunday, and it looks set to be a thriller featuring some of the top boats and sailors in the Class ready to push hard for victory.
The Transat Café l'OR forms the finale of a five-race programme for 2025 which has seen 22 boats competing either fully-crewed or double-handed, and with the Class set to be augmented in the coming months with 11 new IMOCAs currently in build.
Having already won two transatlantic races in the IMOCA Class and been second in this race two years ago, the accomplished French skipper Yoann Richomme can rightly claim to be among the favourites for the Transat Café L'OR.
What's more, Richomme - who is sailing alongside Corentin Horeau - has had a progressive fully-crewed season this year on board Paprec Arkéa, finishing third in the Rolex Fastnet Race and then second in The Ocean Race Europe.
The 42-year-old runner up in the last Vendée Gobe is not afraid to admit that he and Horeau would be a good bet to make it to the top step of the podium in Fort de France in a couple of weeks time.
"I think we've got a fairly good chance," Richomme told the IMOCA Class this week, taking a break from his pre-start preparations. "I think our boat is quite well-suited to strong November conditions - pretty stormy and wavy and a lot of downwind - so it's pretty much everything we like. So yeah, I give us a reasonable chance."
But Richomme and Horeau will have their work cut out on the 4,350-nautical mile course that takes the IMOCA fleet out of the Channel, then south of the Canaries before hooking into the Trade Winds that will take them across the Atlantic to the Caribbean.
Among the 18 IMOCA crews likely to be contending against them at the head of the fleet are the IMOCA Globe Series leader Sam Goodchild sailing with Loïs Berrehar on MACIF Santé Prévoyance, Ambrogio Beccaria and Thomas Ruyant on Allagrande MAPEI Racing, Elodie Bonafous and Yann Eliès on Association Petits Princes-Quéguiner and Jérémie Beyou and Morgan Lagravière on board Charal.
Other entrants include some of the most experienced IMOCA skippers in the Class who each know their boats inside out. They include Sam Davies sailing with Violette Dorange on Initiatives-Coeur, Justine Mettraux and Xavier Macaire on Teamwork-Team SNEF and two veteran French skippers in Romain Attanasio and Maxime Sorel on Fortinet-Best Western.
The fleet also features a five-strong daggerboard group where competition will be tight at the top with Nico D'Estais and Simon Koster on board Café Joyeux expected to be among the strongest performers on the boat (Monnoyeur-Duo for a Job) that finished first in the daggerboard fleet in the last Vendée Globe.
Richomme is expecting a fast getaway on Sunday with the IMOCAs powered up in a fresh northwesterly breeze as they head west out of the Channel. Then things are likely to get a bit more complicated with a light-airs ridge to cross in the Bay of Biscay before the leading boats start coming under the influence of a depression off the Portuguese coast.
"So it looks like strong winds down the Channel," summarised Richomme. "It is going to be a very fast pace all the way to the ridge. Then we don't really know yet. There is a low pressure to the south of it, to the west of Portugal, and it depends a little bit on the models on how it behaves."
Richomme is enjoying sailing alongside Figaro winner Horeau, who takes ownership of Paprec Arkéa after this race, and he is full of confidence about their partnership for this sprint across the Atlantic. "He's a really strong sailor you know," he said. "He spent a lot of years in the Figaro and managed to win it. He's a fun guy to be around and he's very invested in the sailing side and understanding the boat...he's a hard worker and very knowledgeable about getting these boats up to speed."
From his current third position in the IMOCA Globe Series ranking for 2025, a strong performance in the Transat Café L'OR could see Richomme rise to second above The Ocean Race Europe winner Paul Meilhat and potentially threaten Goodchild, who looks on course to win the series.
"It's probably a long shot not to expect Sam to do well, unless he has a technical problem which you don't wish on anyone. But yeah, I've never won the IMOCA Globe Series," said Richomme.
Also among their rivals will be Francesca Clapcich and Will Harris on board the newly-named 11th Hour Racing, formerly Malizia-Seaexplorer. For Harris this will be his last competitive outing on the well-travelled VPLP-designed foiler before Team Malizia takes delivery of its new boat next summer.
Harris wants to be well inside the top-10 at the finish. "We finished seventh last time with Boris (Herrmann)," he said. "When I sat down with Francesca, I kind of said I'd really like to beat that. There are eight big foiling boats which I would say are going to be pretty competitive. If we came in ahead of a couple of them, we'd be pretty happy. So I think we are aiming for the top-seven and top-five would be really cool."
This race is part of the learning process for Clapcich as she takes charge of the boat at the beginning of her build-up to the next Vendée Globe. Although there has not been much time to practise two-handed, Harris has been impressed by her competitiveness.
"She's got a very good performance eye," he said. "She is always interested in how we can make the boat go faster, how we can adjust the sails, how we can adapt the boat. She's got the boat for the next four years and I've definitely noticed this year how she is always looking at the different things that she wants to change and upgrade. Also, she is not hugely over-pressuring or an over-stressful person. She deals with each situation as it comes - she works hard at it, but if it doesn't go to plan she's not getting annoyed at anyone. She's got a very easy-going attitude."
For newly-married Harris, 31, this race comes at the end of a full-on year in the IMOCA Class that has seen him sail in every race on the calendar. However, he says a month off before the start of the Transat Café L'OR has worked wonders. "I'm very much looking forward to getting stuck into this and definitely not feeling tired," he said.