The Ocean Race: Unstoppable

(March 2, 2023; Day 5) – In this edition of The Ocean Race, Kevin Escoffier’s Team Holcim-PRB has selected Sia’s “Unstoppable” as its team song for dockout and stage ceremonies, and early into leg 3 it has never seemed more appropriate. Few would have thought the Roaring 40s would turn into such a paper tiger just days into leg 3 of The Ocean Race. But that’s the case for all but the leader, Team Holcim-PRB.

After winning legs 1 and 2 of The Ocean Race, the Holcim-PRB crew have now built a solid lead just four days into the leg, escaping with a low pressure, high wind system that has left the rest of the fleet behind.

As at 1500 UTC today, Team Holcim-PRB has an approximately 300 nautical mile lead over 11th Hour Racing Team, and it is growing hour by hour with Escoffier and his crew sailing up to 10 knots more quickly than the pursuing boats. But it hasn’t been easy.

“The sea state has been horrible. It is not easy to find the right balance between speed and not breaking the boat,” Escoffier said. “Now we still have to deal with this huge low pressure system in front of us. So far we have been pretty good, first at the start, and with our position after and we have been able to gain and gain a bit more.”

While Kevin Escoffier’s crew race away, clinging by their fingernails to the moderate to strong winds on the outer edges of a low pressure system, 11th Hour Racing Team and Biotherm are trying to find a few puffs that will take them onto the next one.

11th Hour Racing Team has moved into second place, but hasn’t managed to hold on to the same weather system and are mired in lighter winds. But nevertheless, a second place position on the leaderboard after suspending racing for two hours following the start is a good position to be in and on board media man Amory Ross says the mood is good on board.

“Conditions have deteriorated, basically we’re out of wind,” bemoaned 11th Hour Racing Team skipper Charlie Enright. “We have to keep it in perspective. We are seing one of our main competitors (Holcim PRB) sail away at a blistering clip of 18 knots.

“But we have to remember we have 12,000 miles left and 30-something days and there will be a number of weather systems between here and the finish. And just as the rich can get richer, sometimes you can go from the outhouse to the penthouse. I’m sure over the course of the leg there will be opportunity.”

The tracker would show Enright and his team even making miles to the southwest, away from the finish, in an effort to get south to cover Biotherm, who appear to be nearer to the next windline.

It’s a similar story for Biotherm, nearly 200 miles further back, but also experiencing unusually light conditions for a boat that has dipped its bow into the ‘Roaring 40s’. For these teams, the roar of the south is yet to come. “Unusual,” was the way Sam Davies described it.

However two other teams will be much happier in the lighter conditions: GUYOT environnement – Team Europe, now en route to Cape Town to make structural repairs to its boat; and Team Malizia, who have had sailors up the mast today working on reinforcing the mast which suffered damage when a headsail came off the lock, allowing the halyard to tear a fissure through the carbon fibre.

“We have tried to repair the floor a little bit – to glue some battens to strengthen the area – so we can push harder to come back to Cape Town more quickly and fix the boat properly and rejoin the fleet in Itajai,” said GUYOT environnement Team Europe skipper Ben Dutreux.

“I don’t know yet whether that will be via the southern ocean or direct across the Atlantic. We will see after we get to Cape Town.”

The Team Malizia crew has had a grueling day, taking turns up the mast with reinforcing sheets of carbon fibre that need to be glued and cured to make the repair. While the lighter winds and warmer temperatures provided welcome conditions for the repair, a mixed sea state meant the spar was swinging like a pendulum in the air, making for treacherous work.

As of 1500 UTC, the team was still putting the work in up the rig, but skipper Boris Herrmann says the plan is to push forward as soon as possible.

“I feel a bit shattered emotionally. Disappointed,” he wrote in a message earlier on Thursday. “But the great people around me show me the right attitude. Keep face and remain strong to achieve the dream of this round the world race. We thought about going back to Cape Town. This would be an easy reaction. The race could be continued from Itajai.

“But we now all agree to try and continue. It takes of course even more mental strength then such an endeavor takes anyhow. The day we stand on the dock in Itajai I will be super proud. These long races are incredibly challenging.”

At first light this morning the boat team wanted to start the repair that had been expertly prepared by the tech team, they had to delay this due to the bad sea state which would have made it incredibly dangerous to start work up the rig. The goal is to laminate a patch of carbon over the damaged mast. As the morning progresses the sea state only improvee slightly.

The team started to prepare the materials inside the boat, collecting everything they need from the spares bags inline with the shore team’s instructions. Nico (Lunven) focused on keeping the boat on course and managing the surroundings and Antoine was documenting everything, everyone has their role!

Boris is the one coordinating all the departments and crucially communicating with land and our tech team (the fountains of knowledge) whilst Rosie is preparing the laminate. Questions have to be agreed in advance, who is going up, who is mixing the resin, who will wet out the fibre, do you have everything you need.

They have strict instructions from the tech team who are on call to answer any questions, three stacks of carbon fibre must be prepared, they have limited supplies of everything, so accuracy is key, there is no room for error! Each stack has six pieces of material to it and must be applied in a star shaped pattern in order to work and then resin added.

The pieces are cut but the area needs to be prepared before using resin or anything else. Becoming impatient of waiting Will Harris volunteers to go up the mast and start preparing the area. There is little wind which helps the progress, however, there is still a messy sea state and swell impacting the boat, with over three metre waves making the repair a challenge.

Will must sand away the damaged area with a Bosch power tool in order to create a flat surface that the carbon laminate sheets will be applied to. The process takes a long time, well over an hour of being thrown backwards and forwards against the mast and with carbon dust covering Will from head to toe!

The team communicates directly with Will via Bluetooth headsets, they can stay in touch, give guidance and moral support from down below and also ask any questions that Will may have directly to the tech team. When he comes back down Boris sends him to get some rest and eat as he will be back up the mast again for the gruelling task of applying the laminate to the impacted area!

The next part was a race against time. Once you start adding the resin you have 25 minutes to get it on the mast. This is a mix of skill and communication. Will goes up the rig to apply Spabond and then Will tells the team below that he is ready for the first stack to be sent up. Rosie will start to prepare the resin at zero minutes (a complicated process at sea), once you start you have 25 minutes to go maximum.

You wet out the laminate stack in order on a plastic sheet (10 minutes has gone) once done they place the stack in a bucket and winch it up the mast to the waiting Will (15 minutes has gone)! Will then applies the first stack to the mast and communicates to the team down below that stack one is complete, only then can Rosie start to mix the next batch of resin for stack two and then stack three. The whole process takes hours and the whole time with Will up the mast!

With the final patch going on, Will removes the plastic and has to roll the piece into place and clean the area. Will had to finish the process in pitch darkness with a head torch for light. After 2-3 hours they will check their work and after 6-12 hours the area should be cured. By sunrise tomorrow the team will head back up the mast to check the area!

The aim is that this repair will allow the team to sail with full sails. The mast should be at full strength after the repair. If this is not the case then the team should be able to continue with a fractional head sail and reduced main (one reef).

Once Will is safely back on land, Boris Herrmann messaged the group called “Malizia at Sea” saying, “Epic teamwork guys, thanks for all your support – now we can only cross our fingers and wait to see if it goes off well” he finished off by saying “Big respect to Will, it takes so much courage to be up there for so many hours in the dark with 3 metre sea state”.

All five teams are facing their own challenges in the early days of this mammoth leg 3. Each is proving unstoppable.

Leg Three Rankings at 1500 UTC
1. Team Holcim-PRB, distance to finish, 11953.5 nm
2. 11th Hour Racing Team, distance to lead, 298.4 nm
3. Team Malizia, distance to lead, 410.2 nm
4. Biotherm, distance to lead, 478.6 nm

GUYOT environnement – Suspended racing

Race details – Route – Tracker – Teams – Content from the boats – YouTube

IMOCA: Boat, Design, Skipper, Launch date
• Guyot Environnement – Team Europe (VPLP Verdier); Benjamin Dutreux (FRA)/Robert Stanjek (GER); September 1, 2015
• 11th Hour Racing Team (Guillaume Verdier); Charlie Enright (USA); August 24, 2021
• Holcim-PRB (Guillaume Verdier); Kevin Escoffier (FRA); May 8, 2022
• Team Malizia (VPLP); Boris Herrmann (GER); July 19, 2022
• Biotherm (Guillaume Verdier); Paul Meilhat (FRA); August 31 2022

The Ocean Race 2022-23 Race Schedule:
Alicante, Spain – Leg 1 (1900 nm) start: January 15, 2023
Cabo Verde – ETA: January 22; Leg 2 (4600 nm) start: January 25
Cape Town, South Africa – ETA: February 9; Leg 3 (12750 nm) start: February 26
Itajaí, Brazil – ETA: April 1; Leg 4 (5500 nm) start: April 23
Newport, RI, USA – ETA: May 10; Leg 5 (3500 nm) start: May 21
Aarhus, Denmark – ETA: May 30; Leg 6 (800 nm) start: June 8
Kiel, Germany (Fly-By) – June 9
The Hague, The Netherlands – ETA: June 11; Leg 7 (2200 nm) start: June 15
Genova, Italy – The Grand Finale – ETA: June 25, 2023; Final In-Port Race: July 1, 2023

The Ocean Race (formerly Volvo Ocean Race and Whitbread Round the World Race) was initially to be raced in two classes of boats: the high-performance, foiling, IMOCA 60 class and the one-design VO65 class which has been used for the last two editions of the race.

However, only the IMOCAs will be racing round the world while the VO65s will race in The Ocean Race VO65 Sprint which competes in Legs 1, 6, and 7 of The Ocean Race course.

Additionally, The Ocean Race also features the In-Port Series with races at seven of the course’s stopover cities around the world which allow local fans to get up close and personal to the teams as they battle it out around a short inshore course.

Although in-port races do not count towards a team’s overall points score, they do play an important part in the overall rankings as the In-Port Race Series standings are used to break any points ties that occur during the race around the world.

The 14th edition of The Ocean Race was originally planned for 2021-22 but was postponed one year due to the pandemic, with the first leg starting on January 15, 2023.

Source: The Ocean Race