The Route du Rhum 2026 race village in Saint-Malo

The Route du Rhum is a solo transatlantic race from Saint-Malo to Guadeloupe, run every four years since 1978. The start lasts an hour; the race village lasts a fortnight, and that is what most visitors actually come for. From Tuesday 20 October to Sunday 1 November 2026, all 118 entered boats lie in the Saint-Malo docks with the pontoons open to the public.

This page gathers the practical detail: daily opening times, boats leaving through the locks, access, and which day to choose. Elsewhere: where to stay, where to watch the start, and getting there and parking.

Opening times, day by day

The city of Saint-Malo publishes the detail. Doors open at 10 am every day but the first, closing time varies, and there is late-night opening until 1 am every evening through 31 October.

Day	Exhibitors	Late opening
Tuesday 20 October	12 pm – 8 pm	until 1 am
Wednesday 21 – Thursday 22 October	10 am – 8 pm	until 1 am
Friday 23 – Saturday 24 October	10 am – 10 pm	until 1 am
Sunday 25 – Thursday 29 October	10 am – 8 pm	until 1 am
Friday 30 – Saturday 31 October	10 am – 10 pm	until 1 am
Sunday 1 November	10 am – 5 pm	—

On race day the village therefore closes early, and the start is screened there from 10 am to 4 pm — the comfortable option if you would rather not fight for a place on the headlands.

Entry is free; the organisers have also announced free ticketing for the village, with booking details on routedurhum.com. The official site plan is downloadable there as a PDF, and it is the only version worth trusting — the footprint changes from one edition to the next.

Where the village sits

The village fills the Vauban and Duguay-Trouin docks, spilling into Intra-Muros and onto the Esplanade Saint-Vincent, at the foot of the ramparts — some 70,000 m² in all, for thirteen days.

Inside you will find the 118 boats, team and partner stands, a stage with concerts and talks, on-the-water displays in the docks, food outlets, the official shop, and a quiet room.

The pontoons

The heart of the village is the public pontoons. The race boats lie there in a row, and you walk within a few metres of hulls most people only ever see photographed: the maxi Ultim trimarans with their crossbeams at head height, the IMOCA monohulls, the Ocean Fifties, the Class40s, and the Vintage boats that take the race back to its origins.

Skippers come and go, working, answering questions and signing things according to their own schedule and mood — ten days out they have time, two days out very little. One more reason to come early in the fortnight. Fourteen of them are from the Saint-Malo area.

The locks, a spectacle in themselves

This is the Saint-Malo peculiarity, and it comes down to geography: the docks are wet docks, closed by a lock that only opens around high water. Getting 118 race boats out therefore takes several days, in successive lock-fulls, and each passage becomes an event in its own right.

The city has announced presentations and skipper interviews during daytime passages, and after dark, illuminations and light shows.

Announced boat departures:

• Friday 30 October — Ultim: locks at 6:51 pm, 7:51 pm and 8:51 pm (reserve day: Thursday 29 October, at 6:30, 7:30 and 8:30 pm)
• Saturday 31 October — IMOCA, Ocean Fifty and Vintage Multi: 10:08 and 11:08 am (IMOCA), 12:08 pm (Vintage Multi), 1:08 pm then 6:42 pm (Ocean Fifty), 7:42 pm (IMOCA)
• Sunday 1 November — Class40 and Vintage: 6:30 and 7:30 am (Class40), 8:30 and 9:30 am (Vintage)

The city of Saint-Malo notes that these lock times are indicative and subject to change depending on conditions and race organisation. Check again the day before.

Picking your day

Three criteria, in this order.

Weekday over weekend. Crowds build steadily towards 1 November. The two weekends concentrate them; on a Tuesday or Wednesday the same village can be walked without queueing at the pontoons.

Early in the fortnight over late. Every boat is alongside from opening day, skippers are more available, and the town still has room to breathe.

27, 28 or 29 October, if you want the tide as well. A spring tide of coefficient 100 falls in the middle of the village. At low water the bay empties out behind the race boats; at high water the sea climbs back to the foot of the ramparts. It is the combination photographers wait for, and it happens purely because the lunar and race calendars coincide this year. Check the official SHOM tide times before walking out onto the foreshore: high and low water shift by roughly fifty minutes each day, and the foreshore of a bay with this tidal range fills quickly.

Getting there, and the OFF du Rhum

Two shuttle buses serve the village every fifteen minutes, from 9 am to 11 pm, from the park-and-ride sites: Paul Féval to Avenue Louis Martin, and Croix Désilles to Rocabey and the Sous-Préfecture. They are free on presentation of your parking ticket, for up to five passengers per vehicle. A dedicated accessible shuttle links the railway station to the Esplanade Saint-Vincent every thirty minutes, from 10 am to 10 pm.

Watch out for the restricted zone: from 20 October to 1 November, driving in Intra-Muros and along the Sillon is limited to vehicles holding a permit, between 10 am and 8 pm (10 pm on some days). Detail is on the getting there and parking page.

New to this edition, the OFF du Rhum extends the event beyond the village: concerts, exhibitions, street performances and one-off events across Saint-Malo’s neighbourhoods and the wider area, with an interactive map to find them.

For accessibility, the village provides a quiet space, a raised platform for wheelchair users near the main stage, and a dedicated information point at the tourist office.

If you are making a day of it, guided walks of the walled city and boat trips around the bay leave a few hundred metres from the docks, and are worth booking ahead in a fortnight this busy: see activities in Saint-Malo.

What is not public yet

As of 23 September 2026, the detailed events programme has still not been published by the organisers: the precise schedule of concerts, talks and stage highlights has not been published. Detail of the temporary MAT bus routes is on reseau-mat.fr.

We will not invent them. This page will be updated as soon as they are published; until then, routedurhum.com and the city website are the sources to check.