Achille Nebout, the local boy, the little prince of the Baie d'Aigues-Mortes. A pure product of the Mauguio-Carnon Yacht Club, this nursery of light sailing champions, he is based at the regional Centre of Excellence, which has become the Occitanie hope centre. Achille Nebout, a native of Montpellier, will therefore be at the YCMC. All the more so as Laurence, his mother, was for a time president. Optimist, 420, then 470, the base. After that, his clear eyes and youthful looks turned towards the open sea. And above all towards the local salty dream seller, Kito de Pavant, with whom Manu, his dad, often sails. So, while studying at the INSA in Lyon, Achille Nebout took to the water, racing in the Tour de France, match racing and, above all, the Figaro. A bumpy start, until this 3^e place in the Solitaire 2022. Twenty years exactly after the victory of... Kito de Pavant, with whom he shared a Transat Jacques-Vabre in 2019. Of course, Class40 will be a natural choice. As co-skipper at first (with Luke Berry or Xavier Macaire), then 'like a big man', supported by his 'double' Gildas Mahé with a superb 2nd place in the Transat Jacques-Vabre 2023, with the support of Amarris, an accountancy firm, which, so the legend goes, had spotted this little genius on the Virtual Regatta in the Vendée Globe 2020-21, which he finished as the first certified skipper!

But it's not virtually that Achille Nebout, a new father (a joy he celebrated by winning the Transat Québec-Saint-Malo in mid-August) is announcing himself on the MED IMAX Occitanie - Saïdia Resorts, accompanied by his faithful lieutenant, Gildas Mahé, 49, a renowned Figaro racer and sought-after crew member, who knows both the man and the boat. Now based in Lorient, the local boy would love to add to his list of achievements an ocean race organised by the man who made him dream, in the Mediterranean, the garden where this seed of a champion grew.