Around thirty boats registered, a growing share of catamarans and European families, and a wider spread of anchorages across French Polynesia. David Allouch of Sail Tahiti, who took over the organisation of the Pacific Puddle Jump a year ago, looks back on the 2026 season and at the challenges ahead.

This was the first Pacific Puddle Jump organised by Sail Tahiti. What is the first feeling that comes to mind as you take stock of the 2026 edition?

We are very happy, because taking over the organisation after Andy Turpin was a gamble — he is a legendary figure of the rally, and there is a strong history behind it. We managed to create real enthusiasm, with a lot of people crossing and a set of new tools, in particular more modern tracking and a great deal of content to help them make a success of their voyage. So the feeling is really positive.

What are the key figures for the 2026 edition?

We had around thirty boats registered on the tracker. But what is very interesting is that far more people signed up to follow the rally’s news. That means we sparked interest among people who will do the Pacific Puddle Jump next year, in two years, or in three. We also had more catamarans than in the past, with a roughly fifty-fifty split against monohulls. Broadly, there were more monohulls coming from California, while the boats arriving from Europe via Panama tend to be catamarans.

Has the profile of participants changed as well?

Yes. With slightly more European boats involved, there were also slightly more families. American long-distance sailors crossing the Pacific are often early retirees, or young couples and groups of friends who don’t have children yet. The concept of a sabbatical year is very European and doesn’t really exist in the United States (laughs)!

More sailors also went through the Gambier…

Yes, absolutely — and with a lovely initiative from the participants, as it happens. On World Ocean Day, 8 June, several PPJ crews stopping over in the Gambier spontaneously cleaned the motu and the lagoon alongside the islanders. The community then invited them to church and to a big shared meal. It happened completely independently of the organisation. It is wonderful that the event served as a basis for initiatives that brought crews closer — both to each other and to the local people.

What were the other highlights of the 2026 edition?

The arrival of the boats in the Marquesas was exceptional, with many crews meeting up again and thoroughly enjoying the archipelago. There was also a diversification in the flow of boats: more towards the Gambier, as we have just said, but also into the Tuamotus, towards atolls off the beaten track, which was one of our objectives. We know that in French Polynesia there are tensions linked to the concentration of boats in certain anchorages, generally in the more populated areas. We wanted to help spread those flows better, and you could say it has been a success. On a more personal note, I had a wonderful moment when I went to Panama to meet the crews — because for everyone, going through the Panama Canal is something extraordinary.

What is the feedback from participants on the welcome in French Polynesia?

Overall, let’s say 90% of the feedback is extremely positive, because Polynesians are very welcoming. The crews, having got wind of potential tensions, were also more considerate, more careful with the islanders — when you land in these unspoilt places, you should not arrive as though you owned them. On the other hand, there were a few misunderstandings around the organisation of anchorages by the Polynesian authorities. We are making progress on the subject, but not as fast as everyone would like. At the moment information circulates and is then contradicted on the ground. So it is not always easy, either for sailors or for the people living along the shore, to know what is allowed and what is not, where exactly the anchoring zone is, or what to do if you are told to go to a clearly defined area on a mooring that turns out not to be installed yet… But I am confident: it will all improve, from 2027.

As organiser, did you have to step in to help boats resolve technical problems?

We were not called on to deal with emergencies. Compared with the previous year, when several boats across the Pacific found themselves in serious difficulty, this year there was nothing of the sort. That proves these are, after all, very rare events. However — and this ought to be a warning signal — even though we have no dramatic incident to report, we saw more problems linked to electricity on board. Crews have more consumers (fridges, induction hobs and so on), therefore more charging systems and more batteries. There was no serious incident, but several times we stepped in, notably with the Sail Tahiti technical team, on boats that had overheating problems with electrical components. That really is a point on which — and I am speaking not as the PPJ organiser but as a member of the marine industry — we perhaps need to take a small step back and rethink the safety of installations and the way they are checked, before we carry on offering ever more comfort on board.

What were the weather conditions this year?

The weather was kind. Towards the end of the season we may have felt the first effects of El Niño, with slightly more west and north-westerly wind than usual, but for now meteorologists have not established a clear causal link. What is certain is that for next year our advice is not to set off too early into the Pacific, and to wait properly for the cyclone season to end, since an El Niño year increases the risk of cyclones in the Pacific. To be more precise, the only cyclones that have occurred in French Polynesia have been in “Super El Niño” years. So for the boats that are in French Polynesia this year — and for the people of French Polynesia first and foremost — care will be needed.

Any changes planned for the 2027 edition?

We will keep the same window: people will leave California, Mexico or Panama between February and March to arrive in French Polynesia from April–May, in the Marquesas or the Gambier. We are redesigning the website so that it flows better and information is easier to find. We have also created a first short welcome booklet, which we will expand and which people will have access to straight away. Beyond that, we have not yet settled on the formula. Our three-tier system — a free option, a paid entry-level one and a premium one — is not working. So we are hesitating between a completely free strategy, in which the PPJ strengthens its role as a source of information and as a platform for people to exchange contact details and set up initiatives themselves, or a format in which the organisation is more involved, in particular in creating events. We have plenty to think about!

The Pacific Puddle Jump 2026 in six figures

30 — boats registered on the official PPJ 2026 tracker.

3,252 to 3,712 nautical miles — the great-circle distance of a transpacific passage, depending on whether you make landfall in the Marquesas or the Gambier.

26.3 days — the average time at sea, with a clear gap between multihulls (23.7 days) and monohulls (27.6 days).

205 miles in 24 hours — one of the best daily runs recorded this year, by the Nautitech 40 Boudu.

4,167 km² of land, scattered across roughly 2.5 million km² of ocean (EEZ): French Polynesia covers a maritime area equivalent to the six largest EU countries combined — France, Spain, Sweden, Germany, Finland and Poland.

2027 — the next edition is already on its way!