“The Route du Rhum, I’ve dreamed of it since I was little”: the first words of Tom Laperche, winner of the 2026 edition

“The Route du Rhum, I’ve dreamed of it since I was little,” smiles Tom Laperche (maxi-trimaran SVR Lazartigue, Ultim class) on franceinfo Sunday November 8, after his victory on the prestigious Route du Rhum in Pointe-à-Pitre. From his first participation, at just 29 years old, he erased the previous mark established by Charles Caudrelier in 2022 and established a new record time of 6 days, 13 hours and 27 minutes to connect Saint-Malo (Ille-et-Vilaine) to Pointe-à-Pitre (Guadeloupe) alone.

“I had been telling myself for a while that I could win it, that it could be offered to me,” confides Tom Laperche, who had allowed himself this thought “for a few months”, being “in a bit of the same perception as the time I won the Solitaire du Figaro”, in 2022. A state in which the skipper feels that “everything is unfolding and where it’s magical and every time you make a decision, it’s the right one.”

"I'm really happy to have managed to align all these planets on water."

Tom Laperche

at franceinfo

The youngest of the Ultim class, who took the lead just after the gun went off last Sunday in Saint-Malo, spoke to franceinfo, a few moments after his victory, of a "very tough" end to the race, with an "almost promised victory", but for that, he had to "remain at the height of vigilance and on constant alert, so as not to make a mistake". “It's been a little over a day where I feel like there's not much that can stand in our way, other than a bad collision in the water,” says Tom Laperche. “I slalomed between the fishing things, the FADs (fish concentration devices), it scared me a lot,” he confides. “Luckily I did part of the tour of Guadeloupe during the day, I narrowly avoided several.”

“From time to time on the verge of hallucination”

On this same Ultim SVR Lazartigue multihull, Tom Laperche won the Transat Café L'Or in 2025 (Transat Jacques-Vabre until 2024) with Franck Cammas. This time, he is the winner of a solo transatlantic race. “It’s completely different,” he notes, especially when it comes to sleep. “I think I'm one of those who needs to sleep quite a bit and I know that I went far there, that I was on the verge of hallucinating a little from time to time, he says. But that's the very principle of leading these great ultimates alone,” he emphasizes.

“That’s what fascinated me about the history of this Route du Rhum, is that since the 80s, the big winners in big trimarans, it’s an exercise in its own right where you find yourself face to face with yourself, in an area that is extraordinary.”