City of Saint-Malo

The Route du Rhum – Destination Guadeloupe: six words, six little words full of dreams, celebration, and adventure. Six words filled with a big yellow sun and stormy seas. This race is no small feat. It has clung to our memories since 1978; it thrills us, it intoxicates us.

It shakes our senses. The time of Mike Birch's first departure and victory is long gone, but every Malouine, every Malouin carries a piece of the Route in their heart: the death of Alain Colas, the triumph of Florence Arthaud in 1990, Laurent Bourgnon's perfect double in 94 and 98, the dedications, the parades, the sorrows and the joys, especially the joys... The Route has returned for 44 years to amaze us; it leaves in us transatlantic, oceanic traces, traces of men and women who go further, who surpass themselves from the heights of their flying machines. Yes, a dream in its purest form: on the other side of this ocean that Francis Joyon crossed in 7 days 14 hours 21 minutes and 47 seconds, there are our Guadeloupean friends and therefore a friendship, true, tangible, unwavering.

The Route du Rhum – Destination Guadeloupe is a human and technological, sporting and economic adventure. Along with the Football World Cup, the Tour de France, or Roland Garros, there are few sporting events larger, more flattering, more unanimously acclaimed by young and old alike, and more unifying.

Saint-Malo will welcome this new Route du Rhum – Destination Guadeloupe with open arms. Departure on November 6, but before that and twelve days before, the corsair city will be celebrating throughout the village.