The fifth edition of the Drheam Cup will be held from 11-21 July 2024, organisers have announced.
The three courses will be identical to the previous edition’s, between Cherbourg-en Cotentin and La Trinité-sur-Mer, with 11 classes invited and the same ingredients that have been key to its success: competition, sharing and celebration.
Forty crews entered the first edition in 2016, 76 two years later, 95 in 2020 despite the disruption of COVID — among them a particularly successful Tom Dolan — and 134 in 2022.
The Dhream Cup/Grand Prix de France de Course au Large has attracted increasing numbers of crews since the first edition, fulfilling its creator Jacques Civilise’s aim to make it a popular race that is open to all.
When this former “captain of innovation” — who was born in Guadeloupe and has personal connections to Cherbourg-en-Cotentin, where he first started sailing and La Trinité-sur-Mer, where he lives for part of the year — first launched the race, he gave it the motto “competition, sharing, celebration”.
That meant competition, with challenging courses in the Channel, Irish Sea, Breton peninsula and Quiberon Bay, attracting the best sailors; sharing, with the Rêves de Large scheme, during which young people can sail on racing yachts in the Drheam Trophy prologue and discover the offshore racing world; and celebration, with many events open to the public around the race in mid-summer, enabling everyone to enjoy it, especially the 14 July fireworks in Cherbourg-en-Cotentin.
All these ingredients will come together again in the fifth edition next July. The key moments will be the Drheam Trophy on Saturday 13 July 2024, fireworks the following day, the start in Cherbourg-en-Cotentin outer harbour on Monday 15, with arrivals in La Trinité-sur-Mer expected from Wednesday 17 July, and prize-giving on Sunday 21 July.
Eleven classes are invited to the race: Ultime, Imoca, Ocean Fifty, Class40, Figaro Beneteau 3, Mini 6.50, Multi 2000, Large Monohulls Open class, IRC, classic yachts and for the first time the new Sun Fast 30 one design, whose design was initiated by the RORC and UNCL - Racing Division of Yacht Club de France.
The fleet will be divided into three courses, depending on the size and speed of the boats: the Drheam Cup 600 will race to southern England, the Isles of Scilly, Ushant and the Plateau de Rochebonne; the Drheam Cup 1000 will head up to the Fastnet before passing BXA buoy in the Gironde estuary; the Drheam Cup 1500 will take the Ultime trimarans to the Isle of Man and Fastne, before crossing the Bay of Biscay to Bilbao and back up towards La Trinité-sur-Mer.
Organisers add that the Notice of Race will be published in September and entries will open in early January 2024.