Welcome to the Loire 725
725 km paddle race (kayak, stand-up paddle, canoe and pirogue)
2025 Edition
Europe’s longest canoe, kayak, Stand Up Paddle and O.C. race.
725 km in 6 stages from Roanne to Paimboeuf. June 8 to 14, 2025
A unique event in Europe!
Long-distance water races have been on the rise in Europe over the past decade, in the wake of the Dordogne Intégrale (130 or 360 km) in France, the Devizes-Westminster (201km) in England, and the “11 city Tour” (220 km) in the Netherlands. Further afield, South Africa’s Dusi (120 km) and Canada’s famous Yukon River Quest (715 km) are now world-renowned.
The Loire, the last great wild river, was bound to attract the attention of paddlers of all stripes! The cancellation of the famous Yukon River Quest in 2020 and 2021 (due to Covid) was one of the catalysts. Loire canoeist Alain Morvan decided to make up for this disappointment with a giant nautical competition on the Loire.
Retrospective
2021
Launched as a joke, this idea of an unofficial descent with no ranking finally brought together 22 pioneers on June 19, 2021. The result was a “life-size” test of an adventure without equivalent in Europe, between Roanne and Paimboeuf (725 km). And this “zero number”, after consultation with all the participants, inevitably gave rise to the idea of a “real” race in June 2022: the Loire 725 was born.
2022
On June 19, 2022, 100 participants of 11 different nationalities on 80 boats, canoes, kayaks and Stand Up Paddle set off on this new, extraordinary sporting adventure. This year’s winners (François Boucher and Pieter Paauw in K2) covered 725 km in 70 hours of sailing, averaging over 10 km/hour. All participants reached the finish within 7 days.
The question was how often the Loire 725 should take place. Every year ? Every 2, 4 years? We decided on 2 years.
2024
2024 arrived, and with it came disappointment. In fact, 2 months after the opening of registration, we only had 30 entries, which jeopardized the balance of the accounts, and we had to cancel the event. Officially. But that didn’t take into account the fierce determination of some people to make the descent whatever the cost. So, to avoid any excesses, we organized an unofficial version with these 25 boats. We sailed without special authorization, but with 25 boats over 725 km, we were far from a mass event. This made it possible to manage the competitors with GPS trackers and, above all, with the promise of respecting the official race rules.
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Then came the time for introspection. Why so few entries? The verdict was in. The race was too difficult, the mental burden on the support staff was immense, and there was a lack of sharing and conviviality due to the stretched nature of the race.
That’s why the new 2025 edition will be run in stages. 6 stages, 6 starts, 6 finishes and therefore an effort spread over 7 days with more conviviality and sharing. Supporters will know in advance where their teams will stop, and vice versa!
The stages
• Roanne > Saint Satur on June 8 and 9: 248 km
• Saint Satur > Orléans on June 10: 116 km
• Orléans > Tours on June 11: 127 km
• Tours > Bouchemaine on June 12: 114 km
• Bouchemaine > Mauves sur Loire on June 13: 68 km
• Mauves sur Loire > Paimboeuf on June 14: 55 km
The spirit of Loire 725
• To develop an international ultra-long-distance nautical event on Europe’s last wild river.
• To use the event as a powerful training and information tool for the protection of this great wild river.
• Make this the longest canoe-kayak and Stand Up Paddle race in Europe!
• Highlight one of Europe’s most beautiful rivers: the Loire, and all the sites it crosses, including some of the world’s most famous, such as the Châteaux de la Loire.
• Benefit from the unique opportunity of 725 linear km of river, with a few obstacles to navigation, but all of which can be crossed by simple portages.
• Organize an international event every 2 years, linking the 10 départements and 4 regions along the Roanne-Paimboeuf route.
• Highlight the valley’s many and varied tourist attractions (châteaux, wines, regional parks, fauna, flora, etc.).
• Work in partnership with organizations committed to protecting and enhancing the Loire, from both a tourism and environmental point of view.
• Create a free space for confrontation and “encounters” between the best French and foreign canoeists, kayakers, pirogues and stand-up paddlers, in an extreme water race format.
• Encourage top-level raiders to take on an original challenge, and open up the event to as many people as possible by accepting relay entries.
• Communicate strongly on an international level to meet demand, particularly from Anglo-Saxon countries.
• Deliberately limit the number of boats to 150, to ensure the quality and safety of organization that are essential for such a race format.
• Make local authorities, clubs and departmental and regional canoe-kayak committees key partners: it has to be “their” race on “their” Loire.
The organizers
The cancellation of the Yukon River Quest 2021 led Alain Morvan to come up with a “fallback course” for disappointed European entrants… The Loire canoeist brought along Philippe Marchegay, creator and director of the Dordogne Intégrale and organizer of a canoe-kayak world championship, and Franck Fifils, former member of the French canoe-kayak team, sports teacher and winner of the SUP DI 350…
It was this small team that imagined the contours of the “number zero” edition and took the reins of the 2022 version.
Keen to highlight its strong Loire roots, the team approached the Bouchemaine yacht club, where Alain Morvan is an active member. It was he who took on the administrative and legal paternity of the project and of the Loire 725, and who provided the race direction for the 2024 edition. Alain MORVAN will again be in charge of race direction for the new stage race in 2025.
The route
This is the Loire route, between Roanne and Paimboeuf. This choice was made for a number of reasons:
– Start downstream of the last hydroelectric dam.
– Arrival before the very maritime part of the estuary, where navigation and safety would be more difficult to guarantee.
– Despite a number of obstacles to navigation (bridges with insufficient water, dykes, nuclear power stations, etc….), all can be passed after a relatively easy portage, which can be done alone or accompanied by a following team.
The route covers a total of 725 km, and crosses 10 départements, Loire, Allier, Saône et Loire, Nièvre, Cher, Loiret, Loire et Cher, Indre et Loire, Maine et Loire, Loire Atlantique in 4 regions, Auvergne Rhône-Alpes, Bourgogne Franche-Comté, Centre Val de Loire and Pays de la Loire.
Rules and regulations
The organizing team has taken its inspiration from what has been tried and tested on other races of the same type. The meeting point is set for Saturday, June 7, 2025, for the handover of race numbers and GPS trackers, and a big meal together in Roanne, the period chosen for the maximum duration of daylight, of course! Start of the first stage Roanne > Saint Satur on Sunday June 8 at 6 a.m,
The following stages are Orléans, Tours, Bouchemaine, Mauves sur Loire and finally Paimboeuf.
Navigation will be open until 10 p.m., as indicated by the tracker.
Boats that fail to reach the finish will be ranked according to the number of km covered.
Only single or two-seater boats are authorized, with or without relays.
A large buffet will be organized in Roanne and Paimboeuf.
Ranking methods
1) A ranking without relays: the boat crew (1 or 2 people) never changes throughout the race. Accepted boats are kayaks, Stand Up Paddle (SUP), canoes or pirogues (OC or Va’a).
2) Relay classification: boats enter a maximum of twice as many people as the capacity of the boat (2 for a 1-seater kayak, 4 for a two-seater). People can take turns as they wish. As soon as the crew includes a single person more than the capacity of the boat (e.g. 3 people for a 2-seater kayak), it is classified in this category.
For the 2 types of classification, and in an identical way, scratch classification by order of arrival for all those who reach the fixed goal, with classifications also by categories (types of boats), and by sex or mixed category.
Boats that do not reach their goal are ranked according to the number of km covered, and are obliged to report their “abandonment” and return their GPS tracker.
Safety
Motorboats will be mobilized on the downstream section (from Mauves sur Loire) on a permanent basis.
Expected impact in terms of participation
Set for June 8, 2025, the race will, as for the first official edition, be limited to 150 boats, or certainly 250 to 300 people, including the obligatory relay runners and assistants.
This will be the maximum tolerated to ensure that the Loire 725 retains its human, qualitative and environmental character. The best French and international ultra long-distance canoe-kayak and SUP racers should be there, and some of them have already asked us for help: the best sea kayakers, the best downhillers, and the world’s best Stand Up Paddle racers. And in all these categories in 2022, 11 nationalities were represented, 6 in 2024.
Loire 725 partners
