The Trans-Atlantic Race

A single-handed sailboat race across the North Atlantic Ocean. The North face of the Atlantic.

Known as the Transat or Transat-CIC, the 15th edition of the race is set to start on Sunday, 28 April 2024 at 13:30 local time, or 11:30 UTC, from Lorient, a seaport in Brittany (Western France), to New York City, with the finish line being slightly south of Long Island. That's a distance of roughly 3500 miles. It takes the fastest boats about 8 days to complete the race.

"The Transat CIC, whose course is open to the Atlantic, is the most complicated single-handed transatlantic race, because at the end of April - beginning of May, there may be a series of low-pressure systems over the North Atlantic generating headwinds," explains Francis Le Goff, Race Director of The Transat CIC. "The competitors may have to do a lot of upwind sailing in fairly difficult and uncomfortable conditions for several days", he continues. In fact, unlike other transatlantic races that run from east to west, such as the Route du Rhum - Destination Guadeloupe, the second part of the course is not downwind. "The sailors won't be going downwind in search of the Tradewinds. The Transat CIC doesn't head for the sun. There could be fog, rain and wind. The most direct route (great circle route) is via the North, heading up towards Newfoundland, but that's not necessarily the fastest. It depends on the weather conditions".

This is a race for professional sailors, sailing relatively large boats like the IMOCA 60 monohull or the ORMA 60 racing trimaran class, and more. The boats are expensive to build and maintain, and so there are a lot of corporate sponsors involved.

This serves as one of the qualifying races for the Vendée Globe (around the world, nonstop, alone) race, which will be run staring in November of this year. That race starts in France, ends in France, scheduled to catch (somewhat) better weather in the Southern Ocean.

If you are curious about the Transat race, you can find more information at the link at the top of this post. Some about the race, the 48 skippers who are entered, and a race tracker that will have real-time tracking of the boats once the race starts on Sunday.

The party starts today, the 23rd, in the ramp up to the start of the race. Bands, parties, boat tours, etc. You didn't think there would be boating, and not drinking, did you? You haven't been boating much, I see.

I know most of you don't follow sailing, but it reminds me of a time in my life that I miss, though I never had the desire to sail in waters as cold as the North Atlantic.

While this video is taken from the 2020 Vendée Globe, it shows the Imoca 60 monohull in action. Vendee Globe 2020 and the insane IMOCA 60 foiling yachts. The video is about 2 minutes.