He was not the best-known sailor at the start of the Route du Rhum, but he broke the record for the event, narrowly missing out on doing better than Laurent Bourgnon, winner of the 1994 edition at the age of 28, barely a year younger than Tom Laperche, the star of the moment after his transatlantic crossing in less than 7 days. 20 minutes tells you more about the new phenomenon of French sailing.
Raised in a good school
This early triumph seems almost logical in the career of this gifted sailor who, long before piloting the technological monsters that are the Ultim multihulls, spent his childhood on small, demanding trimarans which shaped his education at sea and in the wind.
“He fell into sailing, it was always natural for him to sail,” Philippe Laperche tells L’Equipe, admiring his son’s performance. On weekends, we regularly left on an old wooden trimaran. We had quite a few runners in our relationships who made people dream, Tom was lulled by all these stories. He loves being at sea, when he talks to us about his sailings, he is always calm, even if he experiences the same struggles as the others. I never fear for him. On this Rum he impressed me, he is almost flawless from start to finish. »
“We had the chance to sail a lot as a family, almost exclusively on multihulls that were faster than comfortable,” added his brother Mathieu Laperche. “These boats inevitably make you smile and, very young, we learned to manage their sometimes dangerous reactions. »
The patronage of François Gabart
If Tom Laperche surely owes a large part of his qualities to his father Philippe, an experienced sailor himself, who almost launched a professional career before favoring a career as a dentist, the young man is close to big names in sailing like Thomas Coville or Laurent Bourgnon at Tinité-sur-Mer, RMC explains to us. And if Tom Laperche initially headed towards engineering studies, it is at MerConcept, the shipyard and racing team created by François Gabart that he will complete a decisive study internship in 2019.
“When he did his internship with us and when he started doing Figaro in Port-la-Forêt (at the Pôle Finistère offshore racing), we spent more time together, and somewhere, that's when I started to realize his talent. We already felt the work, the seriousness, the passion for multihulls,” says François Gabart in the team. Three years later, it was the winner of the Vendée Globe himself who offered to do the Jacques-Vabre transatlantic race with him and then to become skipper on the Arkéa Ultim Challenge. His career then took on the dimension we know it today.
A formative abandonment
Before the great joy of the Route du Rhum, there was also a great sorrow, which in some way “baptized” Tom Laperche. A shock with an Ofni in the South Atlantic while he was in 2nd place in the Arké Ultim Challenge: the boat took on water, and there was panic on board, as the very young 26-year-old skipper recounts on the verge of tears in an audio recording from the time:
“After going around the boat, I screamed like I've rarely screamed in my life, I think. So disgusted that everything collapses in a split second. It’s super hard, I’ve never experienced something so hard in my life.” The result is an awareness within its structure, with the arrival of new mentors in the fold of Tom Laperche, such as Franck Cammas and Michel Desjoyeaux.
“When you sail with great champions like them, you have the impression that they are not in the boat but above it,” observes Antoine Gautier, team manager, in the Team. They have this ability to see everything that is happening and anticipate everything. Tom is in the same vein. He may be 29 years old, but he started Ultim 5 years ago. He grew up in contact with Laurent (Bourgnon) in Trinité, all that is anchored in him. »
The proof with his masterclass during this 13th edition marked by serial capsizes, including the abandonment of three heavyweights from the Ultim class, Charles Caudrelier, Armel Le Cléac'h and Anthony Marchand, who nevertheless left with the favor of observers at the start of the race.
