Almost to the end, the navigators engaged in the Route du Rhum have people on board. Preparers are the last to leave the ships. How do they do? In what timing? Explanations.
Port-la-Forêt, Ultim collective training for the Route du Rhum. Several preparers of François Gabart put on dry suits, called dry suits or TPS, and throw themselves into the water. A semi-rigid assistance team Macif, located nearby, recovers. They have just repeated the actions they will take a few minutes before the start of the race.
The procedure set up by the organization, as in any major offshore race, allows solitary sailors to remain surrounded as long as possible before kick-off. For this Route du Rhum, which starts at 14:02, the precise timing has been delivered to the teams.
Before 1:30 pm, team members can be disembarked in the whole starting area, under Pointe du Groin. The safest choice, which avoids any unnecessary stress on departing and departing skippers, zigzagging and zigzagging among the multitude of boats crisscrossing the area.
After 13:30, the preparers can only be dropped in the dropzone, reserved for this purpose, or outside the starting area. Time is already compressing itself.
13:56, the sailors are in a race situation, and alone: only on board their sailboats, engine neutralized. Their technical teams, at that time, were in theory recovered by their assistance.