Upon covering the first forty-mile run to leave the bay of Seine, the first obstacle the fleet will encounter is the passage at Barfleur point, always a tricky spot to negotiate due to the strong currents that can entrap more than one competitor at the beginning of the course.

The course remains an inshore one as the single-handed skippers then sail along the Cotentin shoreline to the Hague headland, before making way towards the Channel Islands. They will have to leave the islands of Aurigny, Herm and Guernsey to starboard. In order to negotiate this tricky passage the skippers need to sail away from the Casquet merchant traffic exclusion zone.

Free of the coastal area obstacles, the competitors then embark on a long crossing of the English Channel, some 120 nautical miles, from the Hanois Lighthouse to the most Western point of Cornwall in Britain, Land’s End.
The last third of the course is an almost full North run covering 190 nautical miles to reach Dùn Laoghaire harbour, south-east of Dublin.

The route is clear to reach Ireland, yet with many pitfalls when negotiating the passage in the Saint-Georges Channel, the narrowest point between Wales and Ireland, with steady and sustained currents.

There will be two possible options: either to sail up along the Welsh coast, drawn by Smalls Lighthouse, an area well-known for its choppy seas; or to follow the Irish coast and Tuskar Rock Lighthouse, an option that may not provide much respite for the single-handed skippers. The sailors will need to negotiate their course carefully along the several large sandbanks such as Arklow bank, Codling bank, Bray bank and finally Kish bank, before reaching the pretty Irish harbour of Dùn Laoghaire on the outskirts of Dublin, strongly protected by long stone walls that make it a veritable stronghold.