Axel May 10:30 a.m., November 15, 2022
The first skippers of the Route du Rhum should arrive this Wednesday in Guadeloupe.
There, they are eagerly awaited and the race headquarters is in turmoil with the management of the problems encountered by the rest of the sailboats.
At the heart of the post, Europe 1 watched with those responsible for the legendary race.
REPORTAGE
It is still dark when the "race PC", installed in a hotel by the ocean, watches over the participants.
Francis Le Goff, responsible for the competitors on the Route du Rhum, does not take his eyes off the control screens.
"There is a permanent watch, so we receive the positions of the boats on our screens every quarter of an hour, every half hour, it depends. And when we have alerts, we can go down to five minutes, even a minute. And there is always someone who responds to the red line that the sailors have displayed in their boat", he describes at the microphone of Europe 1.
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A fire and about twenty abandonments
This red line is the thread that monitors the skippers, the first of whom should arrive this Wednesday on the Guadeloupe coast.
In other words, when there is a real emergency, as was the case on Monday for skipper Fabrice Amadeo, whose boat, a rare thing, caught fire after a short circuit and then sank.
The sailor was saved by a freighter, diverted to the area by the emergency services.
Since the start in Saint-Malo, there have already been about twenty retirements.
Technical problems, dismasting, capsizing, illness, injury… Each time, everything ended well.
And here, in Guadeloupe, the organization of the Route du Rhum is starting to take off.
Because the difficult weather conditions which still affect part of the fleet are improving.
For the moment, the race lead is occupied by Charles Caudrelier, followed by François Gabart.