More triage on 11th Hour Racing Team

(March 13, 2023; Day 16) – Skipper Charlie Enright’s 11th Hour Racing Team continues to face significant challenges on leg 3 of The Ocean Race.

“Whether it’s the wingtips [of the sail battens] breaking at the start and having to suspend racing [soon after the start], the problems with the board-down lines, there’s been a lot going on,” said Enright. “We’ve been manually pumping our keel since day two, we’ve had two sails to repair, two rudder cracks, and a partridge in a pear tree. It’s like a bad Christmas song!”

The latest issue is a badly torn mainsail, with the team revealing a major rip in the sail along a batten at the first reef point.

“The front structural part of reef 1 is ripped off completely, so we dropped to reef 2. We can’t use the full main or the first reef because of the rip,” explained Jack Bouttell. “It’s quite hard to repair on board, nearly impossible I think, because of where it is in a structural part of the sail… I don’t know, this leg is feeling pretty painful right now.”

Enright added, “We did just stop and take a look at the yacht and assess and we made the decision as a group to get the boat to Brazil for some TLC as we have a number of things hampering our performance at the moment.

“We talked about stopping, whether in New Zealand or Tasmania, but ultimately decided that we feel safe in proceeding. Given the weather ahead of us there will be some opportunities but we’re really racing ourselves right now. We’ll see what the future brings…

“As a team we need to engaging in one of life’s last great adventures. We’re in this together as a squad… and we’re going to get this boat to Brazil. That’s the big goal from here.”

Leg Three Rankings at 20:00UTC
1. Team Holcim-PRB, distance to finish, 7191.1 nm
2. Team Malizia, distance to lead, 100.8 nm
3. 11th Hour Racing Team, distance to lead, 143.2 nm
4. Biotherm, distance to lead, 154.8 nm
GUYOT environnement – withdrawn from Leg 3

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