It was a tense first night in Leg 2 of The Ocean Race 2022-23 as the IMOCA fleet has sailed south, away from Mindelo and towards the uncertainty of the Doldrums.
It was an exciting start, despite the light conditions, with close quarters action as the fleet leaves Cabo Verde en route to Cape Town.
Paul Meilhat’s Biotherm is in the lead on Thursday evening, and along with 11th Hour Racing Team and Team Holcim-PRB has been gybing west away from Sao Filipe.
Further behind, Team Malizia is chasing hard, while GUYOT environnement - Team Europe has been catching up from the back, after leading the fleet around the starting race course.
“This is VMG [velocity made good] racing downwind between the islands,” said Paul Meilhat heading into the night. “We made the choice to use the spinnaker off the start and it’s worked well because we are in front of the others.“”
Find the latest fleet positions on the race tracker at theoceanrace.com.
Leg Two Rankings at 1800 UTC, 26 January
- Biotherm, distance to finish, 4,618.0 miles
- 11th Hour Racing Team, distance to leader, 1.9 miles
- Team Holcim-PRB, distance to leader, 8.6 miles
- Team Malizia, distance to leader, 20.8 miles
- GUYOT environnement - Team Europe, distance to leader, 21.9 miles
