Yoann Richomme: "hard, ungrateful but brilliant!"

The Class40 winner burst into joy upon arrival in Pointe-à-Pitre. Despite his fatigue, the two-time winner displayed astonishing lucidity as he spoke about the pace of the race, the fleet's commitment, and this adventure, which serves as a launching pad before the launch of the IMOCA Paprec Arkéa at the beginning of next year.

2022, Arrivée de Yoann Richomme, premier en CLASS40

The general feeling at the finish . “There’s a lot of pride. I really thought that the double was hard to achieve. You have to bring together so many ingredients, so many little details to get there. I was confident about my ability to achieve a good result, but winning, I thought that would be another matter. In addition, given that I shot myself in the foot at the start, which cost me a 4-hour penalty, it didn’t start well. So there’s a lot of pride at the finish. It’s our first regatta with the Paprec Arkéa team, it was our challenge. We didn’t have to go on this adventure, we could have stayed quietly preparing our IMOCA. We wanted to get through the year as best we could, to prepare well for what comes next, and we did it. I’m extremely proud and very happy.”

The scenario . “The race went well. I was really in the area I like, managing the weather a bit rough with the succession of fronts that were very violent, with a lot of breakages and retirements. Every minute of the regatta, I said to myself: “I’m going to break the boat, I’m not going to finish”, even with a 100-mile lead. Even there, between Les Saintes and Guadeloupe, we got hit by a strong squall and I said to myself “it’s not possible, I’m not going to break the boat here!”

The toughness of the race . “It was really tough. I feel like I have tinnitus in my ears; I didn't wear ear defenders strong enough. It was tough, and honestly, I even had to brake the boat sometimes, especially when approaching the fronts. The boat was hellish. I don't know what it's like in an IMOCA, but it's really thankless and tough. But it's a fantastic regatta, with everyone's commitment being very high.”

Corentin and Ambrogio, his two rivals . "Corentin (Douguet, Queguiner - Innoveo) put in a crazy level, despite his energy problems. I thought he was going to stop four times but he kept going. Ambrogio (Beccaria, Allagrande Pirelli) put on a crazy amount of pressure at the end, he came back like a plane. When you see his age, the project he's put in to get here, we know he's going to bother us for a few more years! I think the field was even higher than four years ago."

His comeback. "I didn't really follow the rankings. I did my race, I saw that each time I crossed the line I made considerable gains because I was ready to change tack before the others. So there was more control, I think, because I had experienced more transatlantic races like that. It was very similar to 2018. In fact, I never started to look at the rankings, except for the distance to the leader. I was in my race and I didn't look at the rest.

The trade winds . “At the beginning, it was great, with a first tack under gennaker for two days. It was like in the books, it was bombing. I must have done several hours at 18 knots. After that, it was wild. We were surfing for ten minutes and suddenly, it would jump, the boat would fall back, we had to slow it down because it was going too fast and reaching 23, 25 knots. I thought I was going to become a satellite in the boat. It was surprising and not pleasant at the time. The last two days, I cut back a bit. I was a bit like a wild boar in a coma at the bottom of its boat. It's not the perfect vision of the regatta, but I imagine you have to know how to get through it!”