Thomas Coville and his Sodebo Ultim 3 team set out with two major goals for this season, to take on the Trophée Jules Verne fully crewed round the world record and in the same year to compete solo on the Route du Rhum Destination Guadeloupe. Taking second place on the solo translantic sprint from Saint Malo today is the 57 year old’s best finish since winning the 60 foot monohull class in 1998.
His second today improves on four thirds in 2006, 2010, 2018 and 2022. As he docked today Coville revealed almost all of his race was sailed without his new foils. He lost one on the first day and the second a few days later. As usually he was objective, playing down the inevitable compromise and at the same time paying a warm tribute to Tom Laperche, the outstanding race winner whose parents have been Coville’s friends for many, many years and on whom he continues to be an inspirational influence.
Here are the first words from Coville
Unable to fly “When you set out for the Route du Rhum, you have a plan. My team and I had a goal: to follow up our crewed record passage around the world by taking on this classic, major French race in the same year. To compete in this solo event—the Route du Rhum—you need a "flying" boat. For me the focus was more on the tactical side of things. Things got intense right from the start; I was trailing, and on the very first day, I suffered a major setback—I lost one of my foils. A few days later, I hit another snag. I won’t recount the entire race to you there were just too many twists and turns. It’s a bit like life, really: you set out on a certain path, intending to do one thing, but life takes you somewhere else. Throughout it all, I stayed like a metronome—that was my mantra when I set off. I never once lost focus, which allowed me to reach the finish line and secure second place. I’m well aware that this second-place finish is also partly because...”
Tribute to Laperche, ‘a perfect race’ “It’s a legendary race. And yes, I’ll start with that. Tom delivered the perfect race—the best performance from that team in years. And let’s not forget Franck Cammas; I’ve given him such a hard time in the past, but the moment he arrived on that team, he managed to transform this project. Well done to the team, and well done to Tom—he’s a fantastic winner. Beyond that, this particular Route du Rhum wasn’t the most beautiful, in a sense... I’m longtime friends with Tom’s parents, and he’s simply the guy—the sailor—with whom I’ve had the most fun in my entire life. In the Class40 fleet there is Guillaume Pirouelle—who was with us this winter—right there in the mix, not far off, along with Pierre-Leboucher. And Léo (Legrand, Sodebo Ocean Fifty) is also in the thick of it in the Ocean Fifty There is great group of people taking part in this transatlantic race.”
I have no regrets “As for me, I thought I might be able to snag second place—but that didn’t happen. I wanted to "fly" across the Atlantic—well, that didn’t work out; I barely flew at all. But I kept pushing—that’s just my character, perhaps my trademark. It’s who I am: I always go all the way, every single time. Still, there’s a huge sense of frustration today—knowing I wasn’t able to compete with my full armoury. Regarding my performance, I have no regrets. I couldn't have given any more of who I am or what I do.”
Delivering the best performance we could.... "In terms of pure competition—and that’s what a race is—you have to push to the absolute limit; if you don’t, you can’t win. From the very start, we didn’t push to that extreme. But in terms of the sport itself and the mental side of things—I’m not sure if I did this just for myself, or maybe more for the group that supported me. I truly relished the bond I’ve built with my team—a group of about twenty people—over the last few months, or rather, the last few years. And throughout it all, I remained in a state of uncertainty. But I think Simon Fisher, Chris Bedford, and I all loved staying within our group and delivering the best performance we possibly could."
Back for more one day? “I’ve always approached every race as if it were my last. I’ve always understood the significance of the moment each time I’ve come back to shore. That said, I would love to go all-out one day and really compete across the Atlantic—that’s for sure. It’s such an extraordinary, unparalleled experience to sail these kinds of machines. It’s true that we’re usually dealing with a lack of maturity in this generation of components—the ones we designed but haven’t managed to fully refine before they are put into use I have no idea why the foils broke. We will have to look into that during the debriefing. If you want to lose a few more people [from this conversation], we could dive into the technical post-mortem—but honestly, I don’t know. All I know is that they didn’t hold up. Did I hit something? Nothing at all—no. There was no impact whatsoever. That’s our main issue. Were you in heavy seas? The first one is in very heavy seas. The second one not so....”