Race routing is essentially all about people

The role of the router has developed alongside the rising popularity of ocean racing, but it's by scrutinizing the sea for oil tankers that Pierre Lasnier has become the St. Bernard for ocean racers.

Routing is an art that combines pure technical knowledge with natural instinct. Without human input and a little good luck, it is bound to result in failure. In the world of ocean racing, there are very few individuals able to advise competitors on the right route to take; and amongst those few, Pierre Lasnier is generally agreed to be "very good”. In the increasingly technical world of ocean racing, he advises skippers on the basis of the huge volume of knowledge he has amassed in observing the entire surface of the globe. But Pierre Lasnier's recognition also comes from the unassuming way he works, which involves taking human nature very much into account. On the 2002 Route du Rhum, he routed five competitors, including Karine Fauconnier, Loïck Peyron and Roland Jourdain, as well as making wind field information available to anyone who requests it. At the heart of the terrible storm that was to rise to hurricane-like proportions on the edge of the low pressure area, Philippe Monnet contacted him directly for his advice, although he was not his official router. However, a capsize could not be avoided and it was certainly not the only one of that race. Competitors in events where routing is not allowed, like the Vendée Globe Challenge and the Singlehanded Transatlantic race, attend courses with Pierre Lasnier to learn more about how to read the weather at sea.

Race routing has become something of a passion for Pierre - a religion even. He often spends hours in front of his laboratory computers, in continual satellite contact with the elements and competitors. With his reading glasses perched on the end of his nose and a microphone right next to his mouth, the 53 year-old strolls between giant sea charts, and the casual observer would assume he was talking to himself. The truth is that his mind is no longer in his HQ in the hills above Nice, but at the heart of violent ocean storms thousands of miles away. What he is doing is talking to "his” race competitors.

The media coverage of ocean racing has brought his company to the attention of a much wider public, but in fact 80% of MétéoMer's work is done for the oil industry; companies who would prefer to keep their identities confidential.
Having qualified as a meteorological technician in the armed forces, Pierre Lasnier began his professional career in the French National Meteorological Service.

In 1979, he began working for an oil company and for the next five years contributed to the setting up of the Frig field in the North Sea, before moving south to the Gulf of Guinea. By the time he returned to France, Pierre Lasnier had earned sufficient respect from his clients to be able to set up MétéoMer. The work he now does can be summed up as analysing and forecasting maritime weather conditions worldwide. Such services may be required to support difficult engineering tasks, such as laying pipelines, or as part of wave measurement projects or the study of extreme weather conditions.

But it was a meeting with Janusz Kurbiel that plunged Pierre Lasnier into the world of ocean racing. After an amateur radio conversation with the Polish sailor on one of his expeditions to Greenland, rower Gérard d'Aboville asked Lasnier to help him "land” at Brest after his long crossing of the Atlantic. That was in 1980.
Today, MétéoMer uses its skills to route the world's leading sailors. Even on the same round-the-world course, the advice given to Olivier de Kersauson will be different to that received by Bruno Peyron, because the characters of the two skippers are very different, as are their boats and crews. By maintaining daily contact with them, Pierre Lasnier is always aware of their mental state and fatigue levels and adapts his advice accordingly.

Routing can never be a 100% reliable science, but it is a very considerable aid to navigation. A passing cloud, a significant sunset or a slight drop in wind speed cannot even be perceived on land, so in many circumstances, the skipper will take his own decisions, which is absolutely fine with Pierre Lasnier. He knows the limits of what he does and that beyond the technical limits of knowledge, routing is essentially all about people.

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