His name is in the history books of ocean racing. He is back for his fifth attempt. This year, the story is a bit different as Philippe Poupon wants to write a new chapter by crossing the Atlantic aboard Flo, the 60-foot trimaran that his friend, Florence Arthaud took to victory in 1990 in the Route du Rhum - Destination Guadeloupe.
“I met Florence in 1976 on the quayside in Newport. I was there to pick up a boat that had done the OSTAR. We travelled a bit of the way together in a van. She was just 19. It was the start of a long story and great friendship. Florence was part of our community of sailors and rightly so. Over the years, my wife also became close friends with Florence. They had already chatted about the idea of a film looking back at her career, before she passed away seven years ago. The idea of making the film returned a couple years ago. We couldn’t make this biopic without her boat, Pierre 1er, which was so much part of the story, as it was aboard her she won the Route du Rhum. We went and looked for her and found her in the Philippines and then brought her back to France.
The boat is structurally sound. We carried our some work on her in Michel Desjoyeaux’s yard (Mer Agitée) to deal with the electronics, electricity. We changed the engine and spruced her up with her former colours. Initially we had bought the boat for the film. With the Route du Rhum starting a year later, everything fell into place, even it wasn’t part of the plan. The boat is called Flo to pay homage to Florence, who left her mark on the Route du Rhum. She is out there now. I know. I’m sure she’ll come and give me a bollocking.
I’m not racing to achieve anything in particular. I may have the best performing boat in the Rhum category, but I’ll be sailing as I see fit, based on my ideas about the sea. The aim is simply to get to Guadeloupe and make sure I don’t break the boat. I still have my competitive side, but here I don’t have any rivals. I’ll be trying to sail as fast as I can on the most intelligent route possible, which may not be the fastest. My routing is a mixture of things taking into account safety. If I have to sail further and not as fast, but feel at ease like that, I’ll go for it.
In 1978, ocean racing was just beginning really. The Route du Rhum was the turning point in France for the history of our sport. The race led to its development with the media coverage sought after by Michel Etevenon. That enabled us to build our projects with businesses investing in sailing, once they had seen the feedback.
I have enjoyed looking at all the boats, in particular the Ultims. This is the finest, most advanced development and the engineering resulting from these boats is incredible. I know full well how much skill, talent and experience is required to sail these boats to the finish. I’d love to get out there and sail on one of them. By flying, we have obviously gone a step further. I don’t know if there is a limit to the development of these boats. At the moment, I can’t see what else they can add, but we all know that people always have a fertile imagination.