Storm Austen tore through Saint-Malo overnight, bringing the first real blow of the season to hit the Route du Rhum village. Average wind speeds of 50 knots were recorded, with gusts topping out at 75 knots. Organisers, race teams and technical crews spent the night and into the day working to protect the boats and secure the village infrastructure.
It was an unusual day, to put it mildly.
Numbers climbed steadily through the morning: 50 knots sustained, gusts beyond 75. Staff at the Palais du Grand Large found themselves effectively confined indoors for part of the morning, a word nobody expected to hear again so soon. On the pontoons and through the emptied village, people leaned on each other. Technical teams had been called out in the middle of the night, working through shifts, staying alert to every change in the weather.
For most of them, this storm is neither the first nor the last they will manage. Even at the peak of the gusts, there was a grim sort of good humour about it all. Better to be tied up safely in port, several said, than facing similar conditions out in the Bay of Biscay.
As the gusts eased slightly, old memories surfaced: the big blows, the storms that left a mark because they brought real fear, faced far from land and far from help. Storm Austen may have done one good thing, reminding everyone ashore just how violent conditions can get for sailors out on waters most of us will never know. Passers-by battled the wind on the waterfront that afternoon, bodies bent low, walking slowly against it.
Still, there is something magnetic about weather at its wildest.
Plenty of people drifted towards the ramparts and beaches, chasing a bit of spectacle and thrill. Waves broke hard against the shoreline, throwing up spray. Boats rocked violently at their moorings. Sand swept across the foreshore, and the gusts howled with a kind of raw force. People filmed it, then retreated, sheltering behind the thick stone walls of the old town that have weathered plenty of storms before this one.
Deeper into the cobbled streets, calm returned. A welcome lull.
"The worst of the storm is now behind us," said Julie Coutts, managing director of OC Sport Pen Duick, late in the day. Thanks to the work of everyone involved, the Route du Rhum-Destination Guadeloupe village will soon reopen its doors. Skippers and their teams can turn their attention back to the start, and find a little more peace of mind.
Austen will become another memory added to the list, fresh proof of nature at its rawest.
