What was decided
The facts, without comment
On 17 July 2026, Groupe Figaro, owner of the event, and OC Sport Pen Duick, its organiser, jointly announced that La Solitaire du Figaro will be raced on Ocean Fifty trimarans from the 2028 edition. The 2027 edition will be the last sailed on the Figaro Bénéteau 3.
The Ocean Fifty class comprises eleven 15-metre trimarans — a cap written into its own class rules. They are prototypes built between 2009 and 2023, under a box rule: comparable boats, not identical ones.
The Ocean Fifty class confirms it was consulted beforehand: its statement opens with the words "When the proposal was put to us by OC Sport Pen Duick". No equivalent consultation of the Figaro Bénéteau class, the circuit's skippers or the training academies has ever been made public. One class received a proposal. The other discovered a decision.
2026 fleet → class ceiling
for one season's campaign
erased at a stroke
the towns, the historic class
The heart of the scandal
A common good, governed as private property
La Solitaire du Figaro is, legally, a piece of property: a registered name, an exploitation right, an organising mandate. It is, morally and materially, a collective heritage: fifty-seven years of value built up by people who never held the slightest right over it. The whole crisis of July 2026 lies in the gap between those two realities.
Who built this heritage
- Thousands of sailors, across fifty-seven editions, many of whom staked their own savings on a start line
- The host towns and their taxpayers — every stopover is part-financed through public contracts
- The volunteers of the ports, clubs and race villages, at every edition since 1970
- A shipyard and its workers, who designed and built three generations of one-designs for this race
- The training academies and the federation, which calibrated the entire French pathway on this event
- Hundreds of sponsors, from regional SMEs to title partners, who carried the skippers' campaigns
- The pontoon public, who made every stopover a free popular festival
Who decided its fate
- Two signatures: the brand's owner and its mandated organiser — for a single initiative, the organiser's
- A closed-door review lasting months, never made public
- One consultation: of the class that benefits from the decision — and of it alone
- One announcement, on 17 July 2026
- No public voice for the sailors, the historic class, the academies, the towns, the volunteers or the public
How can a heritage of this size be undone in one announcement? Because nothing protects it. There is no charter of La Solitaire, no founding text, no statute of the event. Even one-design racing — the principle everyone believes constitutive of the race — rests on nothing more than an organiser's decision taken in 1991. What an organiser's decision created, an organiser's decision has just destroyed. The "DNA" that everyone invokes, including the title partner as it slammed the door, never had any legal existence.
And there is something more troubling still: the public pays, but does not decide. Every stopover of La Solitaire is supported by public money — contracts awarded by the towns, regional subsidies, harbours and municipal services made available. Local authorities fund part of the event every year; not one was consulted on its transformation.
Let us be clear: we do not dispute Groupe Figaro's property rights, nor the validity of OC Sport Pen Duick's mandate. Everything that happened on 17 July appears perfectly legal. That is precisely the scandal. A sporting heritage built by thousands of people over half a century can be transformed from top to bottom by a handful of decision-makers, without any of those who built it having a say — because its governance gives them none.
What we contest is the solitary exercise of a private right over a common thing. French law knows this tension and has settled it for stone: a listed château belongs to its owner, and yet the owner may not raze it, sell its gargoyles or turn it into a shopping centre — because the law recognises that heritage exceeds title. What is happening here is a château razed by its manager, with every appearance of legality, because no one ever thought of listing races. La Solitaire has no such protection. Its only protection is us.
The brand belongs to them. The history belongs to everyone.
Exhibit no. 1
Fifty-seven names
Here is what is about to be interrupted. Every line is a year at sea. Look through this list for the winners of the Vendée Globe, the Route du Rhum, the great crewed races: they are almost all here, and it is here that they were discovered. This roll of honour is not an archive — it is the talent pool of French offshore racing, in continuous operation since 1970.
- 1970Joan de Kat
- 1971Michel Malinovsky
- 1972Jean-Marie Vidal
- 1973Gilles Le Baud
- 1974Eugène Riguidel
- 1975Guy Cornou
- 1976Guy Cornou
- 1977Gilles Gahinet
- 1978Gilles Le Baud
- 1979Patrick Éliès
- 1980Gilles Gahinet
- 1981Sylvain Rosier
- 1982Philippe Poupon
- 1983Lionel Péan
- 1984Christophe Cudennec
- 1985Philippe Poupon
- 1986Christophe Auguin
- 1987Jean-Marie Vidal
- 1988Laurent Bourgnon
- 1989Alain Gautier
- 1990Laurent Cordelle
- 1991Yves Parlier
- 1992Michel Desjoyeaux
- 1993Dominic Vittet
- 1994Jean Le Cam
- 1995Philippe Poupon
- 1996Jean Le Cam
- 1997Franck Cammas
- 1998Michel Desjoyeaux
- 1999Jean Le Cam
- 2000Pascal Bidégorry
- 2001Éric Drouglazet
- 2002Kito de Pavant
- 2003Armel Le Cléac'h
- 2004Charles Caudrelier
- 2005Jérémie Beyou
- 2006Nicolas Troussel
- 2007Michel Desjoyeaux
- 2008Nicolas Troussel
- 2009Nicolas Lunven
- 2010Armel Le Cléac'h
- 2011Jérémie Beyou
- 2012Yann Eliès
- 2013Yann Eliès
- 2014Jérémie Beyou
- 2015Yann Eliès
- 2016Yoann Richomme
- 2017Nicolas Lunven
- 2018Sébastien Simon
- 2019Yoann Richomme
- 2020Armel Le Cléac'h
- 2021Pierre Quiroga
- 2022Tom Laperche
- 2023Corentin Horeau
- 2024Tom Dolan · IRL
- 2025Alexis Loison
- 2026Nicolas Lunven
In amber, the seven three-time winners: Poupon, Desjoyeaux, Le Cam, Le Cléac'h, Beyou, Eliès, Lunven. No sailor has done better in fifty-seven years.
Every name on this list came in through a door that is about to be closed.
Exhibit no. 2
The towns that built it
More than fifty ports — in France, Ireland, Spain, the United Kingdom and Portugal — have hosted the race since 1970. Every stopover is co-financed by local authorities: public contracts, subsidies, harbours and municipal services made available. In other words, each of these towns, and their taxpayers, paid their share of this heritage. Not one was consulted on its transformation.
The public paid for every stopover. A private company decided alone.
Responsibilities
Who took this decision
This is neither economic fate nor a federation ruling. It is a corporate choice, made by identified actors, inside a private contract.
Has run the event on Groupe Figaro's behalf since 2011, under a mandate renewed to 2036. The proposal to change boats came from this company: the Ocean Fifty class says so in its own statement.
Has owned the event since 1980, together with its trademarks. Co-decision-maker and co-signatory of the 17 July announcement, on a proposal conceived and carried by its organiser. The final decision is as much its own as its contractor's.
Eleven professional teams receive a first-rank annual solo event — an inheritance they did not build. The only stakeholder consulted before the announcement, by its own account.
Two signatures at the foot of the announcement. One initiative. And no voice for those who sail the race.
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The mandate is extended to 2036
Groupe Figaro and OC Sport Pen Duick announce twelve more years of partnership. The statement sets the first priority: to "allow young talents to measure themselves against the best skippers".
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Twenty-one months behind closed doors
The July 2026 statement refers to a review conducted "over several months". It publicly involved neither the Figaro Bénéteau class, nor the skippers, nor the training academies, nor the host towns.
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Meanwhile, the race is thriving
The 57th edition gathers 36 skippers, including three former winners back on the water, 7 women, 10 rookies and 5 foreign entries. The fleet is described within the sport as steadily growing. Nicolas Lunven, 44, wins his third title. That is the product being shut down.
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The announcement
Switch to Ocean Fifty trimarans from 2028. The format, the fleet, the supporting class and the economic model of the event change in a single statement.
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Paprec walks out
The title partner announces the end of its commitment by the close of 2027 at the latest, denouncing a break with the identity of a race raced "on equal terms" and highly accessible. The event's largest private funder leaves within hours.
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The Figaro Bénéteau class responds
It announces the creation of a solo one-design event, with the backing of the French Sailing Federation and Groupe Bénéteau. The French pathway splits in two.
The chronology says it all: the organiser first secured twelve years of mandate, then transformed the product inside the perimeter already granted. The October 2024 promise — access for young talents — is the exact opposite of the July 2026 decision.
Naming responsibilities
A concession-holder is not an owner — still less an heir
OC Sport Pen Duick did not create this race, did not invent its format, did not build its roll of honour. The company organises the event on behalf of Groupe Figaro, since 2011, under a mandate. A concession-holder receives an event in trust: its mission is to run it, keep it alive and hand it on — not to change its nature. The manager of a monument is not there to redraw its plans.
And this is the least comprehensible part: nothing required destroying in order to create. OC Sport Pen Duick has every skill needed to launch a major solo Ocean Fifty event under a new name — creating and running events is its trade. An independent event would have enriched the calendar without taking anything from anyone. Instead, the choice was made to empty an existing event of its substance and install another project inside it, capitalising on a name that fifty-seven years of history have made precious. Nothing is being created here: someone else's asset — the sailors', the towns', the public's — is being redirected to one's own project.
Hervé Favre, president of OC Sport Pen Duick
The announcement bears two signatures, but the initiative has an author. The proposal came from OC Sport Pen Duick — the Ocean Fifty class writes as much itself — and it is he who conceived it, carries it and defends it publicly; the owner of the name rubber-stamped it. Running the mandated organiser of a collective heritage is a particular responsibility: one is accountable to more than a board of directors. An executive who commits the radical transformation of an asset he does not own, against its entire community, without consulting it, and whose first measurable result is the departure of the title partner on the very same day, must answer for it.
Le Figaro, owner — which rubber-stamped it
This race was born inside a newspaper — L'Aurore, in 1970 — and it was a newspaper that ran it directly for thirty years before entrusting its organisation. Le Figaro is no distant shareholder: the race bears its name. And yet everything suggests the owner merely endorsed a project conceived by its contractor. A press title that lets the popular, meritocratic event bearing its name for forty-six years be denatured without defending it dishonours itself — by action if it wanted this, by abdication if it merely let it happen. The newspaper's name used to fly on the rookies' sails. It will now sit on the floats of a grand prix.
Le Télégramme, the shareholder — of all newspapers
OC Sport Pen Duick is a subsidiary wholly controlled by Groupe Télégramme. A Breton press group whose readership is precisely the pontoon public of Concarneau, Roscoff and Saint-Quay — the tens of thousands of readers who come every summer to shake hands with thirty-six sailors, ten of them unknowns. It is that group which, through its subsidiary, proposes to reserve the race for eleven teams. Responsibility for this decision runs, in law as in fact, all the way up to the shareholder: it engages Le Télégramme as a whole. The newspaper of maritime Brittany will have to explain to its readers why their race will no longer be theirs.
The weight of names
Tabarly, MacArthur — names that bind
The organising company's very name is made of two legends. "Pen Duick" is Éric Tabarly's boat. "OC" are the initials of Offshore Challenges, the company of Ellen MacArthur and Mark Turner. Two whole lives — and each tells the exact opposite of the decision of 17 July.
Pen Duick — and what would Éric Tabarly think?
The very name of the organising company raises the question. Pen Duick is Éric Tabarly's boat — the cutter his father wanted to sell and which he spent his life saving, restoring and handing on, until he died at sea while sailing her to a classic boat gathering. The Pen Duick company, he founded himself in 1973. Tabarly is the exact embodiment of what this tribune defends: the idea that a maritime heritage is received, maintained and passed on — and that no one has the right to be merely its last owner. We will not put words in the mouths of the dead. But a company bearing that name should know, better than any other, what handing on means. The name they received binds them. What Éric would think of this, anyone may ask — and on the pontoons, the answer is hardly in doubt.
Ellen MacArthur — the other name behind "OC"
The "OC" in OC Sport stands for Offshore Challenges, the company founded in 1998 by Mark Turner and Ellen MacArthur. The year before, both were on the pontoons of the Mini circuit: she, newly arrived in France that June for the start of the Fastnet 6.50 in Trébeurden, shy, barely speaking French, on a Mini named Le Poisson, chartered thanks to savings begun at the age of eight on her school lunches; he, a fellow competitor in the Mini Transat they would both finish. That is OC Sport's birth certificate: two unknowns welcomed by French offshore racing because its doors were open — because a small boat and a large appetite were all you needed to enter. Three years later, Ellen was second in the Vendée Globe; eight years later, holder of the solo round-the-world record; she then devoted her second life to a single idea, the circular economy: a system that exhausts the resource it lives on condemns itself. The company born of that story is now locking the entry event of an entire pathway and draining the pool the discipline feeds on. We will not speak in her place. But it is fair to wonder what the co-founder would make of what her initials have become.
It is rare for a company to carry, in its very name, the indictment of its own decision.
The heart of the matter
What this decision abolishes
The debate is not "monohull versus multihull", nor "tradition versus modernity". It is about five characteristics that make La Solitaire what it is — and that all disappear at once.
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01
One-design racing — offshore sport's only pure filter for talent
Introduced in 1991. For thirty-five years, every competitor has raced La Solitaire on a strictly identical boat, sails checked, weights verified. That is what gives the result a certification value nothing else possesses: a Solitaire ranking measures the sailor, not the budget. Ocean Fifties are prototypes of different generations. That guarantee disappears. And one obvious truth must be said, carried by the name itself: the Figaro Bénéteau class is the only legitimate class of La Solitaire du Figaro. The boat bears the name of the race. In 2028, this event will become the only race in the world in which no boat bears its name.
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02
Fleet density
Thirty-six sailors on the line in 2026: thirty-six sponsors, thirty-six home territories, thirty-six stories for the press and the race villages. The Ocean Fifty class caps itself at eleven boats by its own rules. A stage race lives on numbers. Eleven trimarans is a grand prix.
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03
Accessibility
A season's campaign on a Figaro Bénéteau 3 can be run from €50,000–70,000 with a chartered boat, up to €200,000 for a top-level campaign with a new one. An Ocean Fifty campaign runs to millions of euros a year — on the order of ten times more. The social ladder of French sailing is being dismantled.
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04
Openness, since 1970
Intended by the founders, Jean-Louis Guillemard and Jean-Michel Barrault: amateurs on the start line alongside professionals, and a dedicated ranking for the rookies. Ten first-timers started in 2026. With eleven professional boats under a closed quota, that openness has no material support left.
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05
The talent pool — the function nothing will replace
Desjoyeaux, Le Cléac'h, Gabart, Gautier, Auguin, Cammas, Caudrelier, Richomme, Dalin: nearly every great name of French offshore racing was discovered here, on talent alone, on a boat identical to the others. This nursery function is what made France the world's leading nation in the discipline. Abolishing it means turning your back on the sailors who embody this race and whom it revealed — and contracting a debt French sailing will pay in ten years' time, when the generation trained elsewhere is not worth the one trained here.
The 2026 fleet
36 sailors · 7 women · 10 rookies · 5 foreign entries
3 former winners on the line
The 2028 fleet, at best
11 trimarans maximum
Ceiling set by the Ocean Fifty class rules
The comparison they will not make
Two worlds
Here, side by side, are the fleet being shut down and the fleet replacing it. Both raced in 2026. The figures speak for themselves.
| La Solitaire du Figaro 2026 | Ocean Fifty 2026 | |
|---|---|---|
| Sailors on the line | 36 | 11, the class ceiling |
| Average age | around 29 | around 37 |
| Youngest to oldest | rookies of 21–23 up to Nicolas Lunven, 44 — and the winner | from Basile Bourgnon, 24, to Erwan Le Roux, 51 |
| Women | 7 — one in five | 1 — one in eleven |
| First-timers | 10 rookies, with a dedicated ranking since the beginning | no entry route: no free seat, no rookie ranking |
| Nationalities | 4, including 5 foreign skippers | an almost entirely French line-up |
| Annual budget | €50,000 to €200,000 | on the order of €1.5–2.5 million |
| How you get in | a chartered boat, a first sponsor, an entry form | a seat opens only when a sponsor leaves — and changes hands for millions |
Ages estimated from publicly available data (entry lists, class biographies) — orders of magnitude, not official statistics.
Eleven boats, not one more: the logic of a private club
Why this ceiling? The class points to cost control, sustainability and the protection of its owners' investment — perfectly reasonable grounds for a private class. But whatever the intention, the effect is mechanical. Eleven boats means eleven sponsors guaranteed visibility. Above all, it is a door locked from the inside: to get in, you must buy a member's hull, at a price the very closure sustains — the newcomer's millions do not fund the race, they pay the outgoing member's exit. This locked door is not a figure of speech. In early 2026, two front-rank sailors — Damien Seguin, double Paralympic gold medallist and two-time Vendée Globe finisher, backed by a major banking partner, and Éric Péron — explored entering the Ocean Fifty class: the numerus clausus turned them away. They will start the 2026 Route du Rhum on ORMA trimarans twenty and thirty-five years old, entered in the "Vintage Multi" category — active champions racing museum pieces for want of a seat in the modern class. "You cannot get in", Seguin summed up publicly in March, four months before it was announced that La Solitaire du Figaro, the most open race in the world, would join precisely that class (Pos. Report #243, Tip & Shaft, March 2026). The class replied that there were members' boats available for purchase — which is not a rebuttal of the problem: it is its definition. And measure what the 17 July decision produced within the hour: by making these eleven hulls the only entry tickets to a fifty-seven-year-old heritage event, it strengthened the value of the assets of the only party consulted beforehand. A closed circle has every right to exist, and this one has genuine sporting reasons to be. A heritage event, built on the idea that any gifted kid could enter, has no right to become one. Their model is the closed door. La Solitaire's, since 1970, was the open one.
A re-sit nobody asked for
Look at where the Ocean Fifty skippers come from. Pierre Quiroga, winner of the 2021 Solitaire. Baptiste Hulin, Erwan Le Draoulec, Matthieu Perraut, Basile Bourgnon, Anne-Claire Le Berre: most of the line-up came up through the Figaro circuit. In 2028, they will be expected on the start line of… La Solitaire du Figaro. They are being sent back to race the event they have already raced, already learned, and in some cases already won. A winner of La Solitaire will put his title back on the line in the very race that trained him, seven years on, on a different boat. This is no longer a school: it is one long compulsory repeat of the year.
You do not replace a school with a showroom. You only replace students with clients.
Cross-examination
Their arguments, and what they are worth
Below we summarise, faithfully, the justifications publicly advanced by the decision-makers — and we answer them. Anyone can check the record: the statements are public.
Their argument no. 1The world of offshore racing has been transformed: the expectations of the public, partners, media and local authorities have all changed, and so have event business models — the race must follow.
Our answerEverything has changed, indeed — and that is exactly what made La Solitaire irreplaceable. Everywhere else, offshore racing has become a contest of budgets. La Solitaire was the last great event where the ranking owed nothing to the chequebook. When something becomes rare, you do not trivialise it: you protect it. They did the opposite.
Their argument no. 2Preserving La Solitaire means giving it the means to evolve and remain the benchmark for decades to come.
Our answerLa Solitaire has changed boats four times — half-tonners, Figaro I, Figaro 2, Figaro 3 — without ever changing its nature, because the principle of equality was always maintained. Evolving is something it knows how to do. What is under way here is not an evolution of the boat: it is the abolition of the principle. That is a first in fifty-seven years.
Their argument no. 3The fundamentals are preserved: a solo race, in stages, decided on cumulative time, rooted in its coastal territories.
Our answerSolo, stages, cumulative time: those three traits are shared by plenty of other races. What distinguished La Solitaire from every other event in the world was the strict equality of the boats and the openness of the entry list. Those are exactly the two characteristics being abolished. What they are keeping is what was never rare.
Their argument no. 4 — October 2024The stated ambition when the mandate was renewed: to strengthen the race's sporting appeal so that young talents can measure themselves against the best skippers.
Our answerTwenty-one months later, the cost of entering that contest is multiplied by ten and the number of places on the start line divided by more than three. There is no reading of the July 2026 decision in which it serves young talents. That is the central contradiction of this affair, and it is written in their own statements.
The race, sacrificed on the altar of money and entertainment.
A reconstruction of the event's operating account, built from the organiser's filed company accounts and the public contracts awarded by the host towns, puts the expected gain from the switch at a few hundred thousand euros per edition, at best — and in the scenario where the title partner is not replaced, which is now the open question since Paprec walked, the result turns negative.
We do not claim this decision was taken out of greed: the figures say the opposite, and that is worse. The expected economic benefit is marginal, and the cost to the pathway is massive. A fifty-seven-year sporting heritage has been staked on a gain that does not justify it — and the first measurable effect of the decision was the departure, the same day, of the event's largest private funder.
That leaves the explanation no press release will ever print: entertainment, and easier money. Not more money — the figures have just shown as much — but simpler money: eleven premium partners instead of thirty-six budgets to keep alive, on-board boxes to sell instead of an open village to run, a calibrated hospitality product instead of an unpredictable sport. The race was not sacrificed to earn more. It was sacrificed to sell more simply. Look at what is being traded away. On one side, a genuine sporting event with worldwide reach: fifty-seven years of honours, stopovers in Ireland, Spain and the United Kingdom, a first foreign winner in 2024, and the only ranking in the world that certifies a sailor — with the youth, the energy and the spontaneity of a fleet where ten rookies line up alongside the best every year. On the other, what replaces it: an eleven-prototype grand prix, stretched over three weeks, designed first for hospitality. That is not an accusation, it is their programme: the day after the announcement, the class's co-president publicly hailed on his Instagram account, among the first benefits of the operation, the opportunity to "optimise hospitality time" with partners and a wider media echo chamber — without a word, anywhere, for the sailors losing their school (post of 21 July 2026). And let us say it plainly: the Ocean Fifty is a fine class, and its sailors are among the very best. The Ocean Fifty deserves a great race of its own. It does not deserve to be handed another class's.
Their statement, read line by line
They said
The 17 July statement gives the floor to the three signatories of the decision. It is a tragically funny document, worth reading very closely — exact quotes, full attribution, and the original linked so every word can be checked.
The owner
Marc Feuillée, managing director of Groupe Figaro, opens proceedings: La Solitaire is a "sporting heritage", and his responsibility is to "preserve what makes it singular". We want to believe he is sincere. But the same document contradicts him a few paragraphs further down: it is in the third signatory's declaration — not in his — that the real content of the operation appears: La Solitaire becomes one component of another class's championship, and a preparation race for the Route du Rhum… organised by his own contractor.
Two readings are possible. Either the head of a major press group understood that he was signing the demotion of his asset for the benefit of his subcontractor's event — in which case "preserve" and "heritage" no longer mean anything. Or he did not — and there is still time to take the measure of it: the moment the Ocean Fifties enter the picture, the heritage he invokes will exist only as a brand placed on someone else's event. Fifty-seven years of historic asset, erased at the first start.
The organiser
Hervé Favre, president of OC Sport Pen Duick promises an event "faithful to the sporting principles" that built its reputation over more than fifty years. Let us take inventory of this faithfulness. Strict equality of equipment — abolished. Accessibility to every budget — abolished. Openness to rookies — abolished. Not one founding principle of 1970 or 1991 survives the decision. This, then, is faithfulness of a very high order: it survives the disappearance of everything it is faithful to. We knew the Ship of Theseus; here is the Race of Theseus — the fleet, the format, the budget and the competitors have all been replaced, but rest assured, the principles are intact. They must be stored somewhere at head office, in Lorient.
Sacrificed… and demoted
Sébastien Rogues, co-president of the Ocean Fifty class, deserves our gratitude: of the three declarations, his is by far the clearest — everything is said, without varnish. The proposal came from OC Sport? He confirms it. It is a "revolution"? He confirms that too — while the floor above swears by continuity, though apparently no one proofread the whole document. An "opportunity" to consolidate his class's identity? Consolidating one class's identity with the name of another class's race: it took some nerve to phrase it. He did.
And he saves the best for last: La Solitaire will be one component of the Ocean Fifty championship, allowing skippers to "prepare for the Route du Rhum, the pinnacle" of their campaigns. Read that again, slowly. The queen race of French sailing becomes the preparatory race for another one — and the pinnacle in question, the Route du Rhum, is organised by… OC Sport Pen Duick itself. The contractor has turned its client's crown jewel into a warm-up for its own event, and the client signed underneath.
Three signatures, three versions
Let us sum up this remarkable document: the owner promises to preserve a singularity that the text he co-signs abolishes — sincerely, we want to believe, and that is precisely the problem; the organiser stays faithful to principles he repeals; and the beneficiary — the only relaxed man in the story — calmly describes the revolution, the appropriation and the demotion. Three signatures, three versions — and only one that matches the facts: the third. When you want to know what a decision really is, you listen to the one unwrapping it.
They wrote "heritage", "faithfulness", "legacy". Then they signed the exact opposite.
This section is a critical, satirical reading of public statements published on 17 July 2026. Quotes are exact and attributed; the full statement is available via the link above.
The shockwave
Who picks up the bill
A decision taken by two companies lands on an entire ecosystem that was never consulted.
The skippers
Those who invested in a Figaro Bénéteau 3 watch the residual value of their boat collapse without notice or compensation.
The rookies
Ten first-timers started in 2026. The entry route they took will no longer exist for those coming after them.
The Figaro Bénéteau class
A fleet, a circuit and a community of owners stripped of their flagship event overnight.
The training academies
Port-la-Forêt, Lorient, the regional structures: France's entire talent-detection architecture is calibrated on the Figaro.
Groupe Bénéteau
A French shipyard, an industrial tool and jobs built around a one-design conceived for this race.
Mid-tier sponsors
A regional SME can fund a Figaro. It cannot fund an ocean-going trimaran. A whole tier of French sponsorship disappears.
The host towns
Fewer boats means fewer local ties, fewer skippers to champion, fewer stories for the regional press.
The public
La Solitaire was the race where, on a pontoon, you could talk to thirty-six sailors, ten of them unknowns who would be tomorrow's champions. A grand prix of eleven professionals does not tell that story.
La Solitaire was not built by its owners. It was built by those who sail it.
What we propose
Two proposals. Neither is unrealistic.
We are not asking for anyone to be expropriated. We are asking for those who built this heritage to be seated at the table where its future is decided.
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A moratorium, and a genuine consultation
Suspend the decision and open a formal consultation with the Figaro Bénéteau class, the French Sailing Federation, the skippers, the boat owners, the training academies and the host towns. Twenty-one months of closed-door deliberation are no substitute for consulting the sport. Nothing irreversible has been made public: no 2028 contract, no host town announced to date.
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If the Ocean Fifty project must exist, let it bear its own name
Creating a great solo multihull event is a legitimate ambition. Housing it under the name of an event built for fifty-seven years on the exact opposite principle is not. The name settles it on its own: the boat is called the Figaro Bénéteau, the race is called La Solitaire du Figaro — the Figaro class is its only legitimate class. Let the Ocean Fifty race be born under its own brand, and let La Solitaire remain what it is: one-design, dense, open.
In closing
A death foretold is not a death certain
The 2027 edition will be the fifty-eighth — and, if nothing changes, the last. The name will carry on; the race, as thousands of sailors have lived it since 1970, will go out. But nothing irreversible has been made public: no boat commitment, no 2028 contract, no host town announced to date. What was decided in one announcement can be suspended by another.
Fifty-seven editions, from Joan de Kat in 1970 to Nicolas Lunven in 2026. Seven three-time winners. Nearly every winner of the Vendée Globe and the Route du Rhum learned their trade here. This heritage does not belong only to those who hold its trademark: it was built by thousands of sailors who crossed a start line, and by the territories that welcomed them.
This page is an opinion piece. It expresses its signatories' disagreement with a corporate decision and imputes to no one any offence, fraud or breach of the law. The facts reported come from public statements, filed company accounts and the specialist press; figures presented as estimates are identified as such. A right of reply will be published in full, uncut and without comment, at the request of any party named. Any idea, any solution, any wish to join or share this effort: we can be reached at contact@lacoursesacrifiee.fr.