L’Armen Race 2025
Some sailors seem to progress from category to category with ease! Myself? I find myself taking the long route. It’s not deliberate I promise it's just how life seems to pan out. Honestly, aside from some slight jealousy I’ve come to love it, love learning little by little.
I got my first taste for Class40 racing delivering a boat from Ireland to France in 2022, I got help with the race preparation in 2023, help launch a brand-new Class 40 in 2024 and finally in 2025 I actually got to race one.
Qu'est-ce L’Armen race?
L’Armen is not the biggest, nor the most challenging or famous race in the world. It’s a 300-mile sprint around southern Brittany starting and finish in La Trinité-sur-Mer.
I joined the Cap pour Elle team of Aina Bauza and Axelle Pillain, alongside Estelle Greck to make a team of 4. The OG readers (hi mum) will remember that I helped Cap pour Elle project version 2023 with the boat prep, so it’s nice to be welcomed back!
There is never quite enough time to prepare for a race, we did a day’s training together and a quick trip to La Trinité-sur-Mer to prepare. 2 Frenchies, a Spaniard, and a Brit create an obvious problem; what language are we going to speak? Since we live in a democracy the majority ruled so we only spoke in French. Ça marche très bien pendant les entraînements but left me nervous: can I actually speak French at 0230 a.m?
Allez go
L’Armen race is surprisingly large, with different races for different types of boats. I discovered this after watching 150 boats leave the tiny harbor of La Trinité-sur-Mer and filled the starting zone.
The usual pre-start chat of where we wanted to start, what’s our first move tactically and so on. We ripped off a good start, probably second best behind our Belgian competitors, who slightly managed their positioning better and with my former La Solitaire competitor Sanni Beucke metres behind. The 3 boats started a battle that would last the duration of the race.
Leaving the bay of Quiberon was a little like trying to get through a rush hour train station in London. Boats everywhere, all dancing between each other, each in their own little race. In classic commuter style, we immediately tried to push passed down one side of the crowd, then the other, and finally found our gap. As we passed smaller boats, we apologized to those whose wind we had taken, somewhat of a disingenuous apology because you and I both know we’d do the same again. The gap in the traffic allowed us to extend into a mile lead, we all had certain dreams of this breakaway going all the way to the finish but that was crushed after 4 hours.
Sailing version of rush hour.
The weather situation
As we raced north, at about the same speed a High pressure (HP) was moving north directly over our position, for my non-sailing friends High Pressure weather systems are characterized by a lack of wind. Meaning the race's rhythm would be sail, catch up to high pressure, sit around in no wind while we waited for the system to move north, and then repeat this cycle.
So, since we got in the lead, were the first to sail in the back of the HP, stopped and everyone we’d put a mile on would catch up, and the race effectively restarted. At the new start we got away 3rd best behind the Belgians and Sanni’s team. Somewhat annoyed at ourselves.
We raced for about an hour, trailing not leading this time, before yet another stop. This carried out through out the night. An unrelating game of musical chairs. Each time you felt as if this restart would be the one you execute perfectly to go the finish. I lost count after 8 restarts. As the sun came up, we were down in 6th with the arrival 2 new front runners. One with sudden and shocking speed advantage of 36%. They sailed past everyone like we were in optimists. I hope they were playing by the rules.
18 hours in and we arrived at the most northerly point, 5th place 2.6 miles off of the leaders, turning south, sailing away from the HP and towards a building wind. We nailed the maneuver changing from our upwind sails to our big downwind sails, and swept straight into 4th. Morale picked up.
Going South
With the building breeze and a bright sunshine, champaign sailing, reward after a sleepless night. Our boat speed hit 20knots as we chased relentlessly after the boats in front. Waiting for our moment.
With the sun dropping, the wind decided to pack its bags and go home for the evening. Leaving us floating around is roughly the same place as 24 hours before. Our position a little further offshore from Ile D’Houat meant we remained in the wind of longer. Allowing us to cheekly slip into 2nd, sailing through their dirty wind (non-sailing friends this refers to the zone of disturbed wind behind a sailing boat) under one of the most beautiful night skies I’ve ever seen.
The final (not really a)sprint
The final act of this oh so torturous of races. A fluky crossing of back across the Bay of Quiberon, the opposite direction of what we’d done 30 hours prior. We knew the Belgians would have had a big speed advantage owing to their hull design favoriting that angle of wind and brand-new sails. They made their move, after passing the tourist hotspot, Ile d’Hœdic; we were powerless to stop them. With others behind smelling our weakness, Estelle made the call to Control. Giving up 2nd to protect 3rd.
A nervous, slow motion game of chess ensued as we edged our way to La Trinité-sur-Mer and the finish, we needed not worry. We were faster than those behind, and with a softening wind closer the finish line we nearly got back through into 2nd.
High 5s as we motored into La Trinité-sur-Mer in search of a well-deserved croissants and coffees, a few “Oooh-laaa laaas” were exchange with the Belgians in describing our race summed up the emotional rollercoaster it had been.
Thank you to Aina, Axelle and Estelle for putting up with me, Georgia Schofield for the photos. Thanks also to the Belgians, and the team of Sanni, Sasha and Jean-Marre for the nice battle.