Paul Morvan (Foricher - French Touch), winner of the third stage and 3rd in the overall standings of La Solitaire du Figaro Paprec 2026

Paul Morvan (Foricher - French Touch) crossed the finish line in Le Havre in first place this Thursday at 1:17:57 AM French time. He took 3 days, 6 hours, 17 minutes, and 57 seconds to complete the theoretical 630- mile course of the third leg of the 57th edition of La Solitaire du Figaro Paprec. In practice, the French skipper covered 679.12 miles at an average speed of 8.67 knots .

With this victory, Paul Morvan secured a podium finish and 3rd place overall in the 57th edition of La Solitaire du Figaro Paprec! His cumulative race time was 11 days, 3 hours, 32 minutes, and 20 seconds. He finished 46 minutes and 1 second behind the winner, Nicolas Lunven (PRB).

© Vincent Olivaud

Paul Morvan (Foricher - French Touch) - Winner of stage 3:

“Towards the end, when we approached Cherbourg, I made a slight shift. I already had speed quite quickly, whereas normally with the under-gennaker, that’s not necessarily my strong point.

And then, sometimes, just like that, you put on the right sail, you trim the sail and I had a good feeling.

When we came out of the spinnaker, we were in complete disarray, there were 35 knots of cross sea, we couldn't see daylight, we had been in complete disarray in the boat for 20 hours.

And once we'd taken down the spinnaker, I checked the tactics, went to the computer, and saw that there was a current shift to target at Cherbourg, so I quickly chose that option with the real objective of being among the first to reach Cherbourg. Once I got into that current channel, it carried me right to the very end. That, plus good speed, allowed me to come back, but it was tense because we had to go from a very close call, as we were being knocked down under spinnaker, to a situation where we all had to take down the small spinnaker together.

We were going along the TSS, the cargo ships were passing right by at that moment, it was a real carnage.

We were a pack of 4-5, with guys who had been sharp since the beginning of the season, all the guys who wanted to win it.

And then, quite quickly, I had to switch back to tactical mode, so that's what I did pretty well. But I don't often find myself going faster than the likes of Loïs Berrehar or Hugo Dhallenne on these wild, incredibly tough legs. I saw it coming quite late, actually. From Cherbourg onwards, I thought, "Hey, I'm in a good position, and this current is going to push me further than them for a long time, almost to the finish line." That's when I got a little boost, but at the same time, I was a bit scared because it was very similar to the conditions of the BPGO Trophy, and it was carnage. We tore all the sails, and at one point, I even started to reduce the power in the sails a bit. I was thinking, "I can't feel it anymore," I felt like we were at the limit.

And in the end it's okay, but I still think we were close to breaking everything with cracks everywhere."