The organizers of the Transat Jacques Vabre announced on Thursday in Le Havre the change of name of the race, which becomes Transat Café L’Or. Race co-director Gildas Gautier explains the change and the contours of the 2025 edition, which sets off on October 26 from Le Havre bound for Fort-de-France (Martinique).
▶︎ Can you tell us how the name change came about?
Following the prize-giving ceremony for the previous edition at the end of January 2024, we held our first meetings to map out the challenges of the next one. It was at this point that our partners at JDE Peet’s France told us about their desire to change their name (see below). Their choice was to activate a more international, more powerful brand, a way to also perpetuate their commitment to the event and to accompany its rise to prominence, since the L’Or brand is the favorite of the French, and the best-selling coffee in France. The race will therefore benefit from a brand that will give it extra visibility and dynamism, because it’s everywhere on the shelves, unlike Jacques Vabre, which is less present in households. When we carried out awareness studies on the latter, almost after each edition, we realized that people knew the name, but didn’t necessarily identify it with a brand of coffee, so for JDE, it was no longer a brand likely to carry the event. From there, we did a lot of brainstorming around L’Or to find the right name, and we also got agencies to work with us, to finally end up with Transat Café L’Or Normandie Le Havre, a new name that necessarily goes hand in hand with a new visual identity.
▶︎ Have you weighed up the risk of changing the name of a race that is well known to the public and the media?
You obviously don’t just give up a name you’ve carried for a long time, The Transat Jacques Vabre is in fact one of the most recognized sports naming events in the eyes of the general public, and eight out of ten French people are familiar with the event. It was originally called the Route du Café, but it’s worth remembering that this name stuck for a long time, and it took a while for people to really start talking about the Transat Jacques Vabre. Now, when you launch a new name, you have to accompany the change very strongly, which is the case with this revelation and a digital communications campaign that will be deployed so that as many people as possible can see that the Transat Jacques Vabre has become the Transat Café L’Or, using the old name to carry the new one.
“Reinforcing our commitments”
No, it’s a change in continuity. We want to consolidate our DNA and our values. It’s the same race, but stronger, more intense, more committed, but we’re still the same transatlantic race, the longest, double-handed, which takes the coffee route, and an event that has been a pioneer in its commitments, notably environmental and societal. We’re a rather unusual race, already in terms of its governance by an association, which enabled us very early on, as soon as we adopted this status in 2010, to build with Ademe the reference system for eco-designed, eco-managed and fully-compensated events. We’re a popular event, committed to the living world, bold in our mode of governance and our approach to ocean racing, and we really want to reinforce this uniqueness and these values and make them more visible to everyone. That’s going to be one of the most important aspects of this Transat Café L’Or.▶︎ What does this mean?
It’s still a little early to go into detail, but we’ve already strengthened our teams on these subjects, and the entire race village will be dedicated to this commitment, and not just in the positive initiatives pavilion. Every day, from Thursday October 16 to the start on Sunday October 26, we’ll have a different theme to activate and highlight the relevance of all the exhibitors and players in the village. It could be something to do with childhood, better eating, preserving biodiversity, the future of ocean racing or the oceans… We’re also going to be making stronger decisions with the teams, in the sense that when you sign up for the Transat Jacques Vabre, you commit to bringing your boat back under sail, and we want to outlaw cargo returns. We also want to limit the use of motorboats at the start, by developing an alternative offer and trying to make teams and their sponsors as aware as possible of these issues. We are also asking our partners to participate in these commitments, to contribute to reducing our impact and to inclusion or environmental protection programs. It’s also something new: when you partner the Transat Café L’Or, you help to promote its values.
“I can’t say who will arrive
first in Fort-de-France”
We had a contract with Martinique for three editions, and we’ll soon be launching an international call for bids for the arrival of the next two or three editions, for which Martinique will of course also be able to bid.▶︎ What hasn’t changed is the difficulty for a multi-class race organizer to satisfy everyone. The courses for this Transat Jacques Vabre should have been revealed on Thursday, but that wasn’t the case, since the classes don’t all seem to agree. Can you tell more about that?
If we have to take time to create acceptance among everyone, we’ll take it, there’s no problem with that, but we can see that there is a bit of competition between the classes… As far as we’re concerned, our approach is still the same: we’re proposing four staggered starts, four courses, which will be a little different this year, in the sense that they’ll be more tense – we’re going from a duration of around 14 days for all classes except the Class40s to 10-12 days -, the aim being to maintain the principle of grouped arrivals during the press trip, with four winners who will all benefit from great media exposure. Now, I can’t say who will arrive first in Fort-de-France, it’s the conditions and the elements that will decide. With these courses, we have carried out routing over the last ten editions, and depending on the year, it was either an Ocean Fifty, an Ultim or an Imoca that arrived first. We want to stick to a balanced proposal, so as not to create jealousy or favor one class to the detriment of the others. I hope everyone will come to realize that we’ve been working in the right direction.▶︎ Let’s finish with the budget. Will it be increased?
It was already over 35% higher for the previous edition [5.5 million euros, excluding the finish in Martinique], and we’re working on a budget that will be even higher for this one, of the order of 15 to 20%.
Vincent Prolongeau, President of JDE Peet’s France, told Tip & Shaft about the name change: “We’re not blind to the fact that it will take time for the legendary Transat Jacques Vabre to become the Transat Café L’Or, but we’ll be patient and we’re aware of the notoriety risk we’re exposing ourselves to initially. What’s important is that we’re changing the name, but we don’t want to change anything else, because it’s a very beautiful transatlantic race that suits us very well. The reason we’re changing is that the coffee market is evolving, and our Jacques Vabre gringo is much less popular today, whereas L’Or, which was branded at the same time as the Transat, has become the leader in France because it has been able to surf on new trends, and in particular on portioned coffee, essentially capsules. It was legitimate for us to support the Transat with the most representative brand in our portfolio, representing just under 50% of coffees sold in France, while Jacques Vabre has dropped to 1% market share. Our ambition with this new brand is also to reaffirm our long-term commitment, we celebrated the 30th anniversary in 2023, my wish as president of JDE is that we start again for another thirty years.”
Photo: Jean-Louis Carli / Alea
