Watch out for this all-female team from "Upwind by MerConcept", recently launched with the ambition of forming a team of six female sailors on the Ocean Fifty circuit, and accompanying one of them to the starting line of the Route du Rhum 2026. At the end of a selection period, led by Italy's Francesca Capcich, Austria's Lisa Farthofer, France's Thiphaine Ragenneau and Anne-Claire Le Berre, Switzerland's Elodie-Jane Mettraux, South Africa's Micheaela Robinson, America's Sara Stone and Holland's Arianne van de Loosdrecht were chosen. The programme includes the entire Ocean Fifty Series circuit. And with it the MEDMAX Occitanie-Saïdia Resorts, for which the Le Berre-Mettraux duo have been chosen to line up at the start in Port-Camargue on September 29. On one side, Anne-Claire Le Berre, a 42 year old Lorient native, trained as an engineer and naval architect, three times Olympic preparation, specialist in match-racing (vice-world champion, double European champion and French champion in the speciality), moved up a gear in the Imoca 60 footers with Samantha Davies' Initiative Coeur team, as navigator or director of the design office, or La Boulangère Bio, as co-skipper in the Transat Jacques-Vabre. Or as a crew member in the Ocean Race 2023, or on the Imoca 'Guyot Environnement', at the helm of a Mini6.50 with a 5th place finish in the MiniTransat 2021, or as a duo on Amelie Grassi's Class40 with a 13th place finish in the Transat Jacques-Vabre 2023! In short, it's easy to see why she was one of the hundred and twenty candidates to join the Upwind by MerConcept team.

On the other side, Elodie-Jane Mettraux, a Swiss 'expatriate' living in Hyères, in the Var. Exactly 40 years old, she is a pure product of the CER (Centre d'entraînement à la régate) in Geneva. A few circumnavigations of France later (the Tour of Switzerland is more complicated), she embarked on the D35 (sports catamaran of around 10 metres) "Ladycat", owned by Dona Bertarelli, the sister of Alberto, the boss of the Alinghi team. On the strength of this experience, she went on to found her own women's match-racing team, the evocatively-named ChicaCER. And some fine results to boot. She returned to her first love with the Tour de France à la Voile in an M34 in 2012, and headed for the CER in Geneva in 2013, before embarking with Team SCA for the Volvo Ocean Race 2014-2015. On her return, motivated to pursue a female adventure, she co-founded the Magenta Project, on the Match Race Tour in the M32 class. In 2018, she raced a leg of the 2017-2018 Ocean Race aboard Dee Caffari's 'Turn the tide on plastic' (normal for this specialist in the environment and nature management). After sailing in 2022 on 'Leyton', Sam Goodchild's OceanFifty (the same OceanFifty that she is now sailing under the colours of Upwind by MerConcept!), she joined Alexia Barrier's The Famous Project team, this crewed round the world race aboard Idec Sport, Francis Joyon's former maxi. In short, a serious female duo to be reckoned with on the MEDMAX Occitanie - Saïdia Resorts, in a pack of Ocean Fifty boats made up of boys. A real challenge.