Non-French contenders for Route du Rhum podium prove international strength of IMOCA class
by Ed Gorman / IMOCA Globe Series 21 Oct 21:18 BST
Ambrogio Beccaria, skipper of Allagrande MAPEI © Lorenzo Sironi / Allagrande Mapei Racing
This year's Route du Rhum - Destination Guadeloupe, which sets sail from St Malo on November 1st, includes four non-French flagged boats, three of which could make the podium in the 3,540-nautical mile sprint across the Atlantic.
It underlines that the international component in IMOCA racing is significant, not just in terms of the quantity of boats entered in races but their quality.
The Route du Rhum comes after the most international race in IMOCA history - The Ocean Race Atlantic. This saw six teams on the startline; five of the boats were flagged from countries outside France, and of the 24 sailors taking part, no less than 19 were from outside France.
In turn, the Route du Rhum will be followed in January by The Ocean Race around the world which, to date, has four entries, three of which are internationally-flagged boats which will be sailed by predominantly non-French crews.
You only have to look at the current state of the IMOCA Globe Series Championship for 2026 to see the same pattern. The top-three consists of an Italian-American skipper (Francesca Clapcich), an Anglo-French one (Sam Goodchild) and an Italian one (Ambrogio Beccaria). Out of the top-12 in the ranking, half are non-French.
Antoine Mermod, the President of the IMOCA Class, says the internationalisation of the Class away from its French roots is happening, but he would like to see it go even further. "We are very happy about it," he told the Class this week. "It's a goal we have been working towards for many years now, working on ways to make IMOCA open for non-French international teams and sponsors.
"We are making progress but it is not quick enough," Mermod added. "But more and more we can see non-French teams and non-French sponsors are arriving in the game and it seems they are happy about the returns they are getting and the level of racing."
Beccaria's title sponsor is MAPEI, the Italian multinational that produces chemical products for the construction industry. MAPEI board member Simona Giorgetta says the Route du Rhum is a major step for Beccaria who has been enjoying a tight battle with Sam Goodchild on MACIF Santé Prévoyance in earlier races this season. "It is one of the most prestigious and demanding transatlantic races which will put Ambrogio to the test. We are ready to be by his side and follow him with passion and enthusiasm," she said.
Giorgetta explains that IMOCA matches the company's international profile, in line with the global presence already well-established: "We are extremely satisfied with the visibility that this partnership is offering us. Being the Main Sponsor of Allagrande MAPEI, one of the leading boats in the IMOCA Class, allows us to bring our brand to a very high-level international context. Thanks to Ambrogio's communicative strength and the importance of IMOCA in ocean sailing, our logo will be sailing the seas around the world in the coming years."
Another big international presence in the IMOCA ranks is Team Malizia which will be represented in the Route du Rhum by the German skipper Boris Herrmann on his new boat, Malizia 4. Herrmann will be looking for a podium finish in Guadeloupe after positive early signs in The Ocean Race Atlantic until the boat suffered damage to its foil system.
Team Malizia is the longest standing international presence in IMOCA and enjoys impressive commercial backing from a collection of international sponsors - Yacht Club de Monaco, EFG, Zurich, KPMG, Schutz and Hapag-Lloyd. Recently Yacht Club de Monaco and EFG celebrated their 10th anniversary with the team and both have signed up for four more years.
Team Director Holly Cova, who is from the UK, says Malizia's partners are drawn by the diverse story-telling potential of IMOCA racing, whether in The Ocean Race events or the Vendée Globe. "Those two stories complement each other," she explained. "The Vendée Globe is a hero story about one person alone, but The Ocean Race is about team spirit and touching on other areas - a mixed group working together, the next generation bringing up people in the team and ocean and climate topics. There are not many sports where you can combine so many angles."
Cova says that on issues like gender and climate IMOCA is a useful platform: "Most sports are gender-segregated and then, on top of that, you don't really have a realistic climate case that you can tell - if your kids are playing football on a pitch, you are not talking about climate change. So IMOCA racing is pretty unique. I think what brings partners back is that there are not many offerings like this in any other sport and most of these companies still like the competitive element."
Cova also mentioned performance and the attraction to companies of supporting a high level design race in IMOCA. This is something that Simona Giorgetta identified, amongst other elements, that drew MAPEI to the Class. "For us, ocean sailing represents those sporting values that have always been part of the company's DNA: passion, tenacity, determination in facing new challenges and team spirit" said Giorgetta. "We are also interested in the technology and innovation aspects. What's more, it's a sport where internationalisation and sustainability are also important and these are two pillars of our strategy."
Mermod likes to underline that while international teams are now a big part of the IMOCA show, the quality of them has also been steadily improving. Even if the Route du Rhum itself is slightly down on numbers of international participants, the skippers that are doing the race are almost all contenders for the podium.
"The success with non-French and international teams is a balance between quantity and quality and while I think the quantity is in line, you can see that the quality is getting better and better. In the classification of the IMOCA Globe Series, the top-five is mainly non-French, something that has never been the case before," said Mermod.