French offshore sailing’s next big thing is already here
28-year-old Tom Laperche has made a huge impression on the sailing world. Alexander Champy-McLean sat down with him to find out more.
Among the most extreme and captivating craft in offshore sailing are the boats of the Ultim class – 100-foot-long trimarans, most of them fully foiling, designed to race around the world either single-handed or with a small crew.
There are currently only seven of these astonishing yachts in existence, and they’re reserved for the elite: highly experienced sailors with serious silverware to their names.
At just 28 years old, Tom Laperche is skipper of the newest Ultim afloat: SVR-Lazartigue. In short, he’s climbing the ranks faster than anyone before him. Like so many of France’s top sailors, Tom hails from Brittany – specifically La Trinité-sur-Mer, a small town on Quiberon Bay long regarded as the beating heart of the country’s offshore multihull scene.
“Growing up in La Trinité, sailing was inevitable,” Tom recalls. “I started dreaming of becoming a sailor pretty young. As a family, we’d go sailing on our holidays so I quickly started accumulating hours offshore. I sailed Optis, I did a lot of windsurfing, and then some Open 5.70 and Open 7.50 for the club in La Trinité. While I was studying, I sailed the Flying Phantom with Tim Mourniac – that was quite a lot of fun.”