Redemption song All the podium finishers in Class40 had a bad 2023 race

Under normal circumstances when Pirouelle and Château appeared at Cape Salomon, the final big corner of the island before Fort de France’s finish line with a lead of 4.5 nautical miles doing around 10 knots it should have been done deal, a relatively simple task to get across the finish line and take the victory gun. 

But because the Class40 course from Le Havre to Martinique was halted in La Coruña and the final race time would be composed of the aggregate of the two legs, as they approached the finish line the Normandy duo knew they had to win by at least 21 minutes and 38 seconds over the SNSM pairing if they were to win the Class40 title. 

As they each approached the finish line the two duos showed the same intense focus, knowing that one second was all that would be needed to tip the balance either way. Pirouelle and Château let the pilot steer whilst they focused on perfect sail trim. Douguet steered and Tréhin trimmed. 

Pirouelle and Château crossed the line at 15:57:43hrs local time. The first reaction was relief. After the last 48 hours when they had seen their lead shrinking all the time they had done all they could. And the leg was won. They celebrated, hugged, fists in the air, posed for the media and had their family on board. They put the sails away and watched as the clock ticked down, and down. And with probably two minutes to go, maybe a bit more, it became obvious to these professional sailors used to judging the time taken to sail tens of meters, that their rivals were not going to do it. There was a few moments of celebration and then they waited until SNSM crossed, 7 minutes and 21 seconds after their winning deadline expired. 

"We've had some great results in all the races this season," Cédric Chateau said after the finish. "We just needed to make our mark in this the major event, the Transat Café L'Or." 

"It was very long time, much longer than 21 minutes," admitted Guillaume Pirouelle afterwards, "Around Martinique, we saw the gaps opening up and closing, and we thought we could make it, but until Corentin and Axel crossed the finish line, we remained cautious. We know they're formidable opponents and that they were capable of coming back."

7 cursed minutes

The minutes ticked by, and the Douguet-Tréhin duo arrived at full speed in the bay… But too late. "At Îlet Cabrit, we snagged a lobster pot, and Axel had to dive to remove one that was caught in the keel," recounted Corentin. "We knew those minutes were going to cost us dearly." Verdict: 7 minutes, that was the cursed number for the duo who crossed the finish line in second place at 16:26:42hrs. While Guillaume Pirouelle and Cédric Chateau could really celebrate on their boat, Corentin and Axel were reeling. "It wasn't the last 21 minutes that were hard to get through, it was the last 7, the 7 missing," Corentin confided on the pontoon. "When it comes down to that, to such a small margin on such a long transatlantic race, it means we weren't good enough." 

That’s a harsh judgment, considering the pair had brilliantly executed their race by choosing the most challenging option. "I think we can be proud of what we did," Axel Tréhin said, trying to put things in perspective. "Like Corentin, I was quite surprised when I saw that so few of us were heading west, on what seemed to me to be the right route. We knew it was going to be tough."

A few hours later, a blue hull, bearing the inscription "Les Invincibles" (The Invincibles), appears in the bay of Fort-de-France. A pitch-black night meant the finish line was hard to identify. William Mathelin-Moreaux and Italian Pietro Luciani find it and cross third at 22:55:42hrs to take third. Almost immediately the two friends have already lit the flares; the podium is theirs, they who, just two months ago, didn't think they'd even be able to start the race at all due to a lack of funding. "It was the worst period of my life and "This is the best race of my life," exclaimed Pietro Luciani. "We had a terrible start but we finished well, so mission accomplished," added William Mathelin-Moreaux. "Our goal for the year was this transatlantic race, which we didn't manage two years ago because we hit a UFO (Unidentified Floating Object) on the first night. We really had a score to settle."

A third-place finish that honors them when they look at those on the two steps. "We're happy to be part of this group of sailors of this caliber," confided Pietro. "The level of these first two boats, throughout the race, was a cut above everyone else. Sharing the podium with them is really great."

And so with that the podium was settled and in fact for all three, first, second, or third, there was a real sense of redemption as all three duos had suffered technical damages of some kind or another which compromised their race, or indeed halted it prematurely.