THOMAS COVILLE, THE OCEAN ENCYCLOPAEDIST
Thomas Coville has seen and done it all. Mini, Figaro, Vendée Globe, Trimarans ORMA, Volvo Ocean Race, Jules Verne or Saint-Exupéry Trophy, and even the America's Cup, where he began his career in 1994, after touching down in the Tour de France under sail! At the start of the ARKEA ULTIM CHALLENGE - Brest, he will be the only one of the six competitors to really know what it's like to sail solo around the world in a multihull. The only one in history, alongside Ellen MacArthur, François Gabart and Francis Joyon, to have completed it without stopping along the way. A feat he compares to a ski jump: "The start in the noise of the shack is like saying goodbye to the pontoons. The descent from the springboard is the Atlantic and the big jump, the weightlessness of the South, the fragility, until you fall back after Cape Horn and slow down on the way back up...". Thomas Coville has already achieved this feat on three occasions, claiming the best time at the helm of Sodebo Ultim on his fifth attempt, which will run from Christmas 2016 to December 2017. He then beat Francis Joyon's record by more than eight days, before having the Saint-Exupéry Trophy snatched away from him a year later by François Gabart, who again beat him for a week at the helm of a new generation trimaran ...
Regardless of what history has thrown at him, the oldest competitor in the ARKEA ULTIM CHALLENGE - Brest is relentless in his pursuit of the Holy Grail, as he sees it: "Nature offers us the chance to circumnavigate the globe once a year". It's a question of temperament for this stakhanovist of sailing and effort, spotted from the outset for his physical aptitudes and unfailing commitment.
Tireless on your own, invaluable with a crew
The first was Laurent Bourgnon in the 90s on the ORMA Primagaz trimaran, who introduced him to the thrill of multihull sailing and the exhilaration of speed. He would have dreamed of being part of Bruno Peyron's dream team on Commodore Explorer in 1993, and it was Bourgnon who introduced him four years later to Olivier de Kersauson, with whom he sailed in Sport Elec's Jules Verne Trophy, which he completed in 71 days. This was followed by the Mini Transat and then the IMOCA in 1998 with his victory in the Route du Rhum, at the end of which he met Sodebo, his loyal partner for 25 years.
After the ORMA years from 2001 to 2006, where he says he "had a tough time but learnt more than during his circumnavigations", he launched himself into the hunt for the Saint-Exupéry Trophy, which he failed to win for five years. Franck Cammas then reached out to him and Thomas proved to be an invaluable part of the Groupama system, both in the conquest of the Jules Verne Trophy in 2010 and in victory in the Volvo Ocean Race the following year.
Two more Cape Horns were just a pause in Thomas' personal projects with Sodebo. He bounced back in 2013 with the birth of Sodebo Ultim, a 110-footer built on the completely redesigned base of Geronimo, on which he finally won the Saint Ex (2016) and the Transat Jacques Vabre (2017), before receiving the go-ahead for a new ULTIM in 2018. So here he is at the helm of the fourth trimaran in the Sodebo adventure. He entrusted the design to Renaud Banuls and his team's design office, innovating with an advanced living cell in front of the mast but remaining cautious on the appendages for the initial version with a view to a first round the world voyage. A keen technician and tireless competitor, he has never stopped upgrading his trimaran in an attempt to bring it up to the standard of the best flying trimarans in the ULTIM class.
Doubtless a little more than his five rivals, Thomas Coville has a date with history on 7 January, as it is also his story at the helm of Sodebo Ultim 3.
