It is still a far cry from traditional Roaring 40s weather for the four IMOCAs still competing in Leg 3 of The Ocean Race 2022-23, but at least one critical element has returned: the wind.

Biotherm, 11th Hour Racing Team and Team Malizia are all finally on the move after a frustrating period of unusually light, warm, and calm conditions.

While the unusual weather suited Team Malizia as they worked through the day and into the night on Wednesday (1 March) to repair their damaged mast, it was received far less well by the sailors on Biotherm and 11th Hour Racing Team who could only watch as Leg leading Team Holcim-PRB raced away from them, one full weather system ahead.

“We are moving again, after 24 hours in the high pressure system,” said Biotherm skipper Paul Meilhat. “Now, it’s ‘let’s go’. It’s still not very windy, but much better than before. We are happy to be going faster with the boat and not listening to the flapping of the sails. It’s good!”

It has turned out relatively well for Biotherm, who have converted a trailing position to the south into a second place on the leaderboard, by virtue of getting into the new wind ahead of 11th Hour Racing Team.

In fact, the American team has found misfortune over the past couple of days. Ensnared in a high-pressure bubble of near-calm winds, Charlie Enright’s team has even made miles to the west — away from finish — in an effort to get into the new breeze.

As of Friday afternoon UTC (3 March) they are back, moving at 20 knots through the water, but still struggling to turn in a more favourable direction as the calms remain in their path.

But media crewman Amory Ross writes the team is just happy to be moving again: “With one final gybe to the south this morning it feels like we’ve finally escaped the clutches of the high. We have 10 knots on the water and 15 knots at the top of the rig and while we may be heading southwest, at least we’re making progress towards the new wind.

“In the end the high did roll us and we did drift around for the better part of 12 hours; all somewhat foreseeable after we fell off the back of the low. What’s also foreseeable, and you can already see happening, is the new wind filling from the west will first aid Biotherm and then Malizia before it finally reaches us. C’est la vie…”

All in all a tough opening week for the American team, but with 30-plus days of racing remaining, plenty of time to turn things around.

For Team Malizia, the news is positive. Repairs appear to have gone as well as they could have hoped and the team is moving at speed again, if still a little bit cautiously as they allow as much time as possible for the resins to ‘cook’‘ or cure in the repair at the top of the mast. But the prognosis is positive.

“I am so happy, we are back sailing, the workshop is cleaned away and most things are fixed on board,” was the message from skipper Boris Herrmann on Friday afternoon. “I feel so ready for the next part of this race, it fills me with energy to think about what we have just achieved across the whole team and I am ready to go for the rest of this leg! The race is still on, we aren’t far from 11th Hour and Biotherm and the race is still long!”

At the head of the fleet, it’s also all positive for Team Holcim-PRB. The opening five days could hardly have gone better, as skipper Kevin Escoffier sits nearly 600 miles ahead of his closest competitor.

“We will stay in this low-pressure system — like four or five days — and afterwards it will be different and we will have some gybes to do and not a straight line, like today,” Tom Laperche said from on board the leader.

“And yes, behind us they have fallen into the high pressure and they have a lot of light wind over the next two days, but our routing is not very clear for the next week, so I don’t know if they can come back or not.”

That is the flip side of such a commanding lead; it can be difficult to cover your opponents from 600 miles away. But this is a good problem to have.

Racing back to Cape Town, GUYOT environnement - Team Europe is about 250 miles from a weekend arrival at the V&A Waterfront, where everything is prepared and ready for a significant repair operation.

Thomas Cardrin is the head of the Tech Team of GUYOT environnement - Team Europe. “Workshop and storage containers were brought back and the work area prepared,” he says. “The cradles are back, the RIB has to be back in the water, the big fenders are ready. We have made a lot of phone calls to order all the equipment we need to repair the damaged area: carbon fibre, resins, etc. To do this, we need to check how to reinforce the starboard side, which has not been affected so far, for the next legs. We need to prevent the damage from occurring on the other side as well.

“The expected arrival of the yacht is on Saturday afternoon, maybe in the evening. We will prep the mast for Sunday. Sunday midday we should be able to take off the mast, put the boat on the cradle out of the water, wash it and inspect it. By Monday morning the plan for the repairs will be in place and we will start working.”

Looking at the continuation of the race, Cardrin sees a range of possibilities: “The best option is that we repair very quickly and the yacht can start again, so that it goes to Itajaí on the normal track, finishes the leg around Cape Horn. The other option is to go directly to Itajaí to be there in time to get everything ready for the start of the fourth leg.”

Leg Three Rankings at 1900 UTC, 3 March

1. Team Holcim-PRB, distance to finish, 11,493.9 miles
2. Biotherm, distance to lead, 600.9 miles
3. Team Malizia, distance to lead, 633.6 miles
4. 11th Hour Racing Team, distance to lead, 634 miles
5. GUYOT environnement - Team Europe, race suspended

Find the latest fleet positions on the race tracker at theoceanrace.com.

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.

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 third leg, escaping with a low-pressure, high-wind system that has left the rest of the IMOCA fleet behind.

As of 1800 UTC on Thursday (2 March), Team Holcim-PRB has a 300+ nautical mile lead over 11th Hour Racing Team, and it is growing hour by hour with Escoffier and his crew sailing more 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.”

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 onboard media man Amory Ross says the mood on the boat is good.

It’s a similar story for Biotherm, more than 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 gruelling Thursday, 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 today, 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 today. “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 Itajaí.

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

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 1800 UTC, 2 March

1. Team Holcim-PRB, distance to finish, 11,894.9 miles
2. 11th Hour Racing Team, distance to lead, 338 miles
3. Team Malizia, distance to lead, 459.4 miles
4. Biotherm, distance to lead, 521.3 miles
5. GUYOT environnement - Team Europe, race suspended

Find the latest fleet positions on the race tracker at theoceanrace.com.

It’s been a busy 24 hours in The Ocean Race, with the IMOCA fleet pushing east at pace, trying to hold on to the strong winds of a southern-latitude low-pressure system.

Team Holcim-PRB is making the best of it, but the news of the day centres around GUYOT environnement - Team Europe who have elected to turn back towards Cape Town after suffering what the team and its technicians are calling a “hull sandwich failure” — essentially a structural problem with the boat — while racing in 20-25-knot winds early this morning (Wednesday 1 March).

“I was just coming off watch and I was just about to get into my bed and I could see on the opposite side of the boat there was a pelican case tied to the floor and it was moving,” said Annie Lush.

“I didn’t think I’d seen it move like that before and when I went to check I could hear the noise of delamination… We could hear it and see it moving up and down… We spoke to the architects and there is no way we can fix this out here, so we have to return to Cape Town.”

Aboard GUYOT environnement, a concerned look on the face of Benjamin Dutreux as the boat returns to Cape Town due to hull damage | Credit: Charles Drapeau/GUYOT environnement - Team Europe

GUYOT environnement had been sailing a good start to this leg, sitting in second place at the time of the discovery and subsequent suspension of racing on Leg 3.

“It’s not a nice feeling. This is a big leg and we were in a strong position. We were enjoying the race. But there’s nothing we can do now but try to get back as quickly and safely as possible and assess what happens next. We’ll be back. We’ll let you know when as soon as we can.”

Cape Town is nearly 600 miles to the northwest of the GUYOT crew’s current position. An ETA over the weekend seems possible, but could shift depending on conditions.

Earlier, on Tuesday evening (28 February), Team Malizia saw a failure on the locking mechanism for its headsail result in the sail falling into the water. The crew had to work quickly to cut it away to avoid damage to the foils and keel.

“Our downwind sail came off the hook [on the mast] and fell into the water,” skipper Boris Herrmann said. “Now, we are on a different downwind sail but this issue gave us a good hour of work and left us drifting backwards and losing maybe 20 nautical miles at least as well as the sail! However, everyone is safe and did a great job in sorting this out and no other damages as far as we know.“”

Meanwhile, out on the race course, it’s Kevin Escoffier and his Team Holcim-PRB who continue to lead the charge out to the east.

The Holcim-PRB boat is now just over 100 miles further east than 11th Hour Racing Team and Team Malizia as all three try to maintain contact with the stronger winds in the low pressure system spinning relentlessly ahead of them. Biotherm is just slightly further back.

Amory Ross, the onnoard media crew member on 11th Hour Racing Team gives a nice explanation of how his team — and the fleet in fact — balanced the risk/reward equation of navigating towards the gale force winds and heavy sea state of the low pressure system over the past 36 hours.

“For the time being at least our southing has come to an end,” he says. “We exercised an abundance of caution with the low that has now passed to our east and have spent the better part of the last 36 hours gybing back and forth between a corridor of ‘safe latitudes’ where conditions felt manageable. We’d go south towards the depression’s center until the winds or the sea state — or both — became a bit too much, and we’d gybe back north. Whenever it felt like conditions were getting too light, we’d gybe and go back south and the process would restart.“”

Take a look at the tracker going back to Monday evening and you can see what he means.

Leg Three Rankings at 1700 UTC, 1 March

1. Team Holcim-PRB, distance to finish, 12,272.9 miles
2. 11th Hour Racing Team, distance to lead, 94.5 miles
3. Team Malizia, distance to lead, 117.5 miles
4. Biotherm, distance to lead, 206.4 miles
5. GUYOT environnement - Team Europe, race suspended

Find the latest fleet positions on the race tracker at theoceanrace.com.

The wind has arrived for Leg 3 of The Ocean Race 2022-23 on Tuesday (28 February) as the five IMOCA teams settle into higher latitudes and begin to criss-cross to the east, hooking into the first big weather system of the leg.

After a day of light winds and adverse current on Monday, the winds will be welcome. But they come with a punishing sea state, with seas forecast as high as six metres the further south one dares to venture.

The fleet appear to agree somewhere around latitude 39-degrees south is far enough — you’ll see the boats gybing back to the north and then again to the south on the tracker, straddling this parallel of latitude.

“The idea is to find a good way, with good speed and not too much wind or waves,” said Biotherm skipper Paul Meilhat. “It will be a long few days in quite raw conditions. We are entering quickly to the south.”

“The wind has picked up a lot” is how Robert Stanjek described the conditions on board GUYOT environnement - Team Europe on Tuesday. “We have seen up to 32 knots of wind. We are sailing downwind with the FRO [fractional code zero headsail] and one reef in the mainsail in a little less wind but bigger waves. It is not so easy to drive.”

Looking to the weather charts, the fleet is squeezed between the ridge of high pressure they’ve just crossed and a deep low pressure system, featuring strong winds and big waves, which is pushing up ahead of them from the south and moving with them to the east.

“We have a big low pressure to cross. This system doesn’t move very fast, it’s almost the same as our speed so we might be with this almost to Australia,” said Tom Laperche from on board Team Holcim-PRB. “The wind conditions and the sea state will be hard. We have an option to stay north. If we go south, we will have many hours with wind over 40 knots — a bit too much.”

Striking the right balance between speed and safety will be the key on Leg 3. It is very unlikely any of the teams will make a winning move during these first days, but an aggressive decision that results in damage could be impossible to recover from, so prudence is likely to be the name of the game.

Leg Three Rankings at 1800 UTC, 28 February

1. Team Holcim-PRB, distance to finish, 12,613.7 miles
2. GUYOT environnement - Team Europe, distance to lead, 24.1 miles
3. Team Malizia, distance to lead, 71.7 miles
4. 11th Hour Racing Team, distance to lead, 115.4 miles
5. Biotherm, distance to lead, 159.7 miles

Find the latest fleet positions on the race tracker at theoceanrace.com.

After beating upwind into the teeth of a gale on Sunday evening (26 February), a few hours after the Leg 3 start, things have slowed down for The Ocean Race fleet — now back up to a full complement of five racing boats — as of Monday (27 February).

The five IMOCA crews are bumping into a small ridge of high pressure and the light winds associated with it. They’ll have to push through this to get south and into the higher latitudes of the Roaring 40s to pick up the train of low-pressure systems that will deliver them around Antarctica and towards Cape Horn on this longest leg in race history.

But there is another obstacle as well. A very strong eddy from the Agulhas current has at times been pushing the boats north at up to four knots. 11th Hour Racing Team and Team Malizia appear to have been particularly punished by this.

Finally, when the teams do make it to the south, they’ll face some of the strongest winds and fearsome seas they’ve seen in the race.

By noon on Tuesday (28 February) the wind is forecast to be near 40 knots, with waves of up to six metres. It will be very challenging conditions.

On the race course, both 11th Hour Racing Team and Biotherm rejoined the race after making repairs. Skipper Charlie Enright had his 11th Hour Racing Team ready to go as soon as the mandatory two-hour period expired.

For Paul Meilhat, it took longer to source supplies and start the repairs, but he was able to leave the dock just before midnight in Cape Town and restart a few minutes later at 2221 UTC.

The light conditions have allowed Meilhat and his team to close the gap significantly already, showing the wisdom of the decision to take a short break to ensure his boat is ready for the rigours ahead. Repairs continue on board.

Kevin Escoffier and his Team Holcim-PRB are in a familiar position at the front of the fleet, perhaps just nosing through the ridge, with Benjamin Dutreux and Robert Stanjek’s GUYOT environnement - Team Europe very close behind.

“The wind has been a bit lighter than expected,” said Escoffier during the night. “We are also in the ‘current loop’ which is pushing against us.”

The next 24 to 36 hours will be a fascinating period in this race.

Leg Three Rankings at 1700 UTC, 27 February

1. Team Holcim-PRB, distance to finish, 12,926.7 miles
2. GUYOT environnement - Team Europe, distance to lead, 19.6 miles
3. Team Malizia, distance to lead, 45.3 miles
4. Biotherm, distance to lead, 46.2 miles
5. 11th Hour Racing Team, distance to lead, 52.4 miles

Find the latest fleet positions on the race tracker at theoceanrace.com.

It was an extraordinary ‘stop-go’ type of start to Leg 3 of The Ocean Race 2022-23 in Table Bay on Sunday afternoon (26 February) as the five-boat IMOCA fleet set out on their 12,750-nautical-mile adventure towards Itajaí in Brazil.

The race started with two-and-a half laps of an inshore course to give the crowds lining the Cape Town shore an opportunity to marvel at these hydrofoiling boats before they headed out into the big blue yonder of the Southern Ocean.

A pod of three whales sighted in the original starting area meant the race committee had to make a late change to setting up the race course. With the start line now impacted by the wind shadow of Table Mountain, there was very little wind for the fleet as the seconds counted down to start time.

The skippers must have been wondering why they had all put in two reefs to reduce mainsail area. As the start gun fired, the closest boat to the start was Biotherm. The other four boats were stranded, just over a hundred metres away.

It wasn’t long before Paul Meilhat’s team found 25 knots of wind gusting around the edge of Table Mountain and his Biotherm team shot away into an impressive lead as the rest of the fleet drifted across the start line well after the start had opened.

Biotherm continued to stretch away to what was almost a 600-metre advantage over the rest of the fleet, who eventually hooked into the 25-knot wind and accelerated up to speeds of 30 knots or more.

Team Malizia had crossed the start line in second, followed by GUYOT environnement - Team Europe, with 11th Hour Racing Team narrowly leading Team Holcim-PRB over the start line.

However, as Biotherm completed the first lap of the course, Meilhat saw his boat speed drop from 20-plus knots down to less than two knots as the shadow of Table Mountain reasserted its influence. The whole fleet compressed and Biotherm’s seemingly unassailable lead vanished into thin air.

Team Malizia was first to rediscover the breeze for the start of the second inshore lap, closely followed by 11th Hour Racing Team. Meanwhile Biotherm dropped from first to last as Meilhat’s team were overtaken in the light airs patch by Holcim-PRB and GUYOT environnement - Team Europe.

Once the fleet was back into the breeze, it was another gusty, edge-of-the-seat downwind ride to the bottom of the course, the boats just maintaining control in the strong, blustery conditions. At some moments, two reefs didn’t look like enough with the boats nearly overpowered.

Biotherm then had a problem and it was clear the team was struggling to control its sails. A radio call to the Race Committee saw the team suspend racing to return to port to make repairs.

“We broke the strop on one end of the mainsheet,” said Paul Meilhat at the dock. “Then the mainsheet went too far on the gybe and pulled off the end of the track and we lost all the bearings in the system. So we needed to come in to make this repair and replacement. We shouldn’t lose a lot of time if we do this now. It’s not a big issue, but we need to fix it.”

Biotherm back on the dock assessing the damage | Credit: Sailing Energy/The Ocean Race

Then it was 11th Hour Racing Team who were the next to suspend racing with damage to a batten. But the American team elected to stay out at sea to make repairs and serve the minimum two-hour period.

“We have broken two wing tips on the mainsail,” said team CEO Mark Towill. “We actually have two spares on board, so we could make the repair, but that would leave us with no spares for the Southern Ocean. So we’ll get the spares on board to be prepared for the long leg… This is the prudent thing to do.”

11th Hour Racing Team were eligible to resume racing at 1507 UTC but as of 1700 UTC Biotherm’s race remains suspended pending the completion of their repairs.

Meanwhile, out at sea, Team Malizia was the first to find the wind around the headlands off Cape Town and started to make their way on Leg 3 along with Team Holcim-PRB and GUYOT environnement - Team Europe — all three boats within six-and-a-half nautical miles.

The forecast is for winds in the 25-30 knot range with two- to three-metre swells. Leg 3 promised and enthralling, treacherous sleigh ride and that’s exactly what we’ve got in the very first hours.

Find the latest fleet positions on the race tracker at theoceanrace.com.

At over 12,750 nautical miles, Leg 3 of The Ocean Race 2022-23 will be the longest ever in the 50 years since the competition began.

When the IMOCA boats cast off from the dock at midday in Cape Town on Sunday (26 February), this will be the most emotional departure for friends and family.

As the fleet heads into the most remote ocean on the planet, there is a lot at stake. There will be plenty of goodbye tears as the sailors set off on an adventure expected to last more than a month.

Two-time veteran of the race Charlie Enright, skipper of 11th Hour Racing Team, commented: “When the course for this race was announced, everybody keyed in on this leg pretty quickly as the big one. You know, it’s going to be somewhere between 30 to 40 days.”

There are good reasons to love and hate the Southern Ocean. Even in a southern hemisphere spring, at such deep latitudes it can be unrelentingly cold. Cold enough for icebergs to be a threat and something to be monitored on radar.

For long periods during the passage from the Cape of Good Hope to rounding Cape Horn, you’re more than a thousand miles from any other human beings. Except for when the astronauts fly overhead, about 250 miles up in space on the International Space Station.

But the Southern Ocean is also a sailor’s dream. The ultimate sleigh ride where you can have fun surfing huge waves for weeks on end.

“The south can be unbelievable,” enthuses Enright. “I mean, it’s big westerly winds with no leeward mark, a sailor’s dream and you get to go downwind forever. But it’s also a pretty treacherous part of the world.

“In the two previous editions of the race we’ve been either side of that. In 2014-15 we were a group of young guys and to find ourselves leading the fleet around Cape Horn was a magical moment. But in the next edition of the race we dropped a rig about 50 miles after going around Cape Horn. So the Southern Ocean can give and it can also take away.”

Paul Meilhat, skipper of Biotherm, was late signing up to The Ocean Race. The French skipper thought he didn’t have much time to round up the kind of experience he wanted on board, but Leg 3 made it an easier sell for convincing his fellow IMOCA sailors to join the crew.

“When I announced the project and said I was looking for crew, they all asked to do this leg,” he said. “This is the leg that everybody — the public, the journalists — all speak about because it’s almost half of the race in terms of miles, it’s the longest in the history of this race. So, yes, it’s a big one.

“But we mustn’t forget that we are going to have 10 [scoring] coefficients. This is a big part of the race, but we must focus not just on this leg but about The Ocean Race as a whole. Which is why the most important objective is to be in Itajaí to be able to finish the race.”

Two other French skippers are also very aware of the importance of this leg in determining the outcome of The Ocean Race four months from now. Neither Kevin Escoffier nor Benjamin Dutreux want to take the results of the first two legs for granted. Escoffier and Cape Town In-Port Race winners Team Holcim-PRB have a perfect score with two leg victories down the Atlantic but are taking none of their early success for granted, while Dutreux and GUYOT environnement - Team Europe have finished last in both opening legs.

Dutreux is adamant that the scoreboard doesn’t tell the story of a much closer level of performance throughout the fleet. After all, the GUYOT team did hold the lead for large chunks of Leg 2.

“I am very happy with the the beginning of the race, even if the leaderboard doesn’t show that,” said Dutreux, who sat out the second leg from Cabo Verde. “The scoreboard, it’s only numbers, and what I feel is that the level is very high and very close in the fleet. We have a fight with the other boats, and our points are not good, but I’m very happy with the fight and effort we put into sailing the boat, and that is the most important factor.

“I feel we are making good progress, and I’m looking forward to getting back on board and fighting for 20 per cent of the race on this crazy leg.”

Team Holcim-PRB skipper Kevin Escoffier is looking his usual energetic self, even if he’s not quite feeling it: “We had some rest, but not enough, in Cape Town. I would have liked to spend more time here, and for the shore crew it has been difficult getting the boat ready in time for the next leg. There is still plenty of race to come. Like Paul [Meilhat] said, the most important thing is to finish in Itajaí.

“When we started in Alicante in January, we were already pushing the boat to 100 per cent of what we thought we could do, maybe more. I don’t know if we are pushing too hard on the boat. I think it was pretty easy in the Atlantic, because we have references from other experiences in the Atlantic.

“For the next leg going into the Southern Ocean it will be completely different. We have to find a new of setting up the boat, to find a good average speed without pushing the boat too much. With Team Holcim-PRB we have never done 30 days in a row at sea. It’s the unknown, but we’re looking forward to it.”

So is Team Malizia’s Boris Herrmann, who makes no secret that his boat has been built with the Southern Ocean in mind.

“You can’t build a boat that’s good for all kinds of wind and wave conditions,” said the Team Malizia skipper. “But downwind in strong conditions is what we and [our designers] VPLP designed this boat for. I hope we can take advantage of this on Leg 3 and prove that the boat is good for such conditions in the Southern Ocean.”

Herrmann also notes that there needs to be change of mindset when heading out of the Atlantic and into the south: “What we are about to do, I think it is really the pinnacle of The Ocean Race this time and very different from the other legs. It’s almost a different type of yachting or racing. In the Atlantic we can be used to do really very close racing, to be very focused on performance all the time. But going into the Southern Ocean is also a big adventure.

“If we need rescuing, it can take 10 days for a warship to get to these regions to be able to help you. We are thousands of kilometres away from the nearest land. We’re really on our own.”

The forecast for Sunday’s race start is 15-20 knot southerlies, with the wind in the start area quite shifty due to the local geography and the wind coming from the shore.

Leg 3 is scheduled to start at 1415 local time in Cape Town (1215 UTC). If you’re lucky enough to be in Cape Town, come down to Ocean Live Park at the V&A Waterfront and head out on the breakwater for a great, in person view, or follow the live viewing at the V&A Amphitheatre. In Ireland, tune into the action live on Eurosport or discovery+ from 11.30am or catch up later on demand.

Team Holcim-PRB led the Cape Town In-Port Race presented by V&A Waterfront from start to finish this afternoon, Friday 24 February, further proving their dominance over The Ocean Race fleet on the eve of its most daunting leg yet.

With the South African sun blazing down on the race course and the southerly breeze blowing 15-18 knots, conditions could not have been better for some fast and tactical competition.

A three-lap configuration on the rectangular race course would test every team’s boat-handling skills on these IMOCA boats, which are not designed for turning tight corners but for going fast in straight lines for hundreds of miles.

While GUYOT environnement - Team Europe (FRA/GER) timed its start perfectly for a marginal advantage as the gun fired, it was Kevin Escoffier’s crew just to windward who were quickest to pop their blue-green hull up onto the hydrofoils and launch to an immediate and significant lead over GUYOT and the rest of the fleet.

GUYOT environment - Team Europe, Team Holcim-PRB, 11th Hour Racing Team and Team Malizia jockey for position in the shadow of Table Mountain during the Cape Town In-Port Race on Friday 24 February | Credit: Sailing Energy/The Ocean Race

Meanwhile Biotherm (FRA) had got stuck on a race mark even before the start gun was fired. Paul Meilhat’s crew were doing all they could to disentangle the IMOCA from the mark, while the fleet raced away ahead of them. Crewman Anthony Marchand jumped off the boat and on to the mark to protect the Biotherm hull and foils from any damage with less than 48 hours to the start of Leg 3. Reluctantly the team was forced to head for the dock, scoring 0 points from the In-Port Race.

“Unfortunately, a couple minutes before the start we hit a buoy,” Meilhat said. “We were in the middle of the fleet and the buoy was hidden by the boats in front of us, so we didn’t see it until very late and then [we were boxed in by the other boats]. We are lucky because it was a soft buoy where the foil made contact. We need to check but I am confident that the boat will be okay for Sunday — this is the most important thing.”

By mark one of the three-lap square course, Team Holcim-PRB (SUI) had stretched to a lead of a few hundred metres. Further back was a tight battle for second, with 11th Hour Racing Team (USA) outmanoeuvring GUYOT in a simultaneous gybing duel. Charlie Enright’s American crew moved up into second, with GUYOT now looking to defend third place from Team Malizia (GER) hot on their heels.

GUYOT environnement - Team Europe foiling off Cape Town’s docks | Credit: Sailing Energy/The Ocean Race

Team Holcim-PRB stretched into a 500-metre-plus lead over 11th Hour Racing Team, who in turn had extended nicely on the boats behind. Team Malizia hooked into a gust that missed GUYOT and to skipper Benjamin Dutreux’s frustration, Boris Herrmann’s crew slipped past the European boat and up into third place on the second lap.

After 43 minutes of racing, Escoffier’s crew celebrated an easy victory onboard Team Holcim-PRB, finishing more than two minutes ahead of Enright who scored a solid second for 11th Hour Racing Team. Team Malizia were third and GUYOT environnement fourth across the finish line, although still two points up on Biotherm, long since retired from the In-Port Race.

“We’re very happy,” said skipper Kevin Escoffier of Team Holcim-PRB. “We had a very good start, and we raced fast, doing safe manoeuvres, going straight and with speed. It was very shifty with Table Mountain behind us but now we can enjoy the view.”

Full speed ahead for Team Holcim-PRB in the Cape Town In-Port Race | Credit: Sailing Energy/The Ocean Race

Now the teams have less than 48 hours to make sure their minds, bodies and boats are fully prepared for the start of Leg 3 and 12,750 nautical miles of adventure through the Southern Ocean to Itajaí in Brazil.

Results and points - Cape Town In-Port Race presented by V+A Waterfront:

1. Team Holcim - PRB (SUI), 5 points
2. 11th Hour Racing Team (USA), 4 points
3. Team Malizia (GER), 3 points
4. GUYOT environnement - Team Europe (FRA/GER), 2 points
5. Biotherm (FRA), 0 points

The In-Port Series and Overall Race Leaderboard is HERE.

Friday’s In-Port Race in Cape Town is scheduled to start in perfect racing conditions at 2.15pm local time (1215 UTC).

And the crew lists have now been published for the Cape Town In-Port Race presented by V&A Waterfront, which is the second event in the In-Port Race series for The Ocean Race 2022-23.

It follows the opener in January in Alicante, Spain where Team Malizia won the race, with 11th Hour Racing Team and Biotherm taking the other podium positions.

In addition to being a competition in its own right, the In-Port Race series also serves as the tie-breaking mechanism on the overall race leaderboard.

The forecast for the Cape Town In-Port Race presented by V&A Waterfront on Friday (24 February) is for 15-knot southeasterlies, with stronger gusts possible — perfect racing conditions for the course in Table Bay.

If you’re lucky enough to be in Cape Town, come down to Ocean Live Park at the V&A Waterfront and head out on the breakwater for a great in-person view, or follow the live viewing at the V&A Amphitheatre.

In Ireland, Friday’s In-Port Race will be available for broadcast exclusively on Eurosport 1 or 2 beginning at 1130 UTC, and live or on demand on the Eurosport App or discovery+ player.

Boris Herrmann will be back as skipper of Team Malizia for Leg 3 of The Ocean Race 2022-23, following a burn injury he sustained from Leg 1 to Cabo Verde.

“I went to a burns specialist who had a very special treatment approach that is different from what most people would experience in Germany or anywhere in Europe,” he says. “It’s a more advanced and modern treatment that has worked well for me.”

Getting burned is an ever-present risk while handling boiling water and pouring it for making hot drinks or rehydrating freeze-dried food. Herrmann admitted he was the problem rather than any shortcomings in the cooking equipment.

“It was me being stupid,” he says. “We are making some modifications which will be ready before the start of this leg so as to make it [the cooking equipment] as safe as it can be. We just put our freeze-dried food under the valve and open the valve, which means we don't need to move the pot with the hot water.”

The team has put aside enough food for 40 days of sailing. “It’s actually 36 full days and then a bit extra, so that when we see an immediate need we have a little bit of margin in our every-day bags. On the last leg the team found they were able to stretch some days in between, which means you always have some left over. This would be enough for the last four days or so you might need if the race is slower than expected.”

‘We have a strong team, a strong boat for this next leg and really I think we have a lot of potential’

Herrmann’s return to the boat means that British crewman Will Harris steps back from the temporary skipper’s role he held for Leg 2. It won’t change the day-to-day much on board Malizia, however, says Harris. The routine will remain the routine.

“Everyone's involved in every decision, whether it be a tactical discussion or whether it be safety, whether it be fixing the boat,” Harris says. “It was a great experience for me to be skipper on the last leg. I think I learned a lot and it made me appreciate the responsibilities that Boris has being the skipper on this boat. It’s nice to learn what’s involved in the role, and now on this next leg hopefully I can apply the knowledge

“My goal is to be a useful asset to the team. We all feel like we’ve all found our niches. We’ve bonded as a team and we have found our cogs in the clock. We have a strong team, a strong boat for this next leg and really I think we have a lot of potential for the next leg. I’m really enjoying the close racing in the fleet and pushing these boats hard in all conditions, that’s what I’m looking forward to getting back to in a few days.”

Herrmann shares Harris’s optimism: “I’m looking forward to the leg because I really feel that we could perform very well. It’s not very often that you have a programme in place, where the conditions seem to be aligning well for our strengths.

“Of course you can never be certain of the wind, if some high pressure system comes in as we sail out of Cape Town. But we’re expecting strong winds as we get into the leg and I think we are well prepared for that.

“Going around Cape Horn will be one of the great moments of the race. It’s such a cool landmark that I hope we can see it when we go past and be in a good place [in the race] at the same time.”

Biotherm racing at full sail | Credit: Anne Beauge/Biotherm

In other news, 11th Hour Racing Team’s request for a foil change after discovering serious damage during maintenance in Cape Town last week was approved by race officials.

And Biotherm skipper Paul Meilhat is adding Sam Davies to his team for Leg 3, the longest leg in the 50-year history of The Ocean Race, which begins in Cape Town this weekend following the In-Port Race on Friday (24 February).

He says experience is critical for what he views as a challenging leg: “We are really happy to have Sam Davies on the boat, joining in Cape Town. She has a lot of experience, she has crossed Cape Horn many times. Biotherm is a new boat, so it’s going to bring some confidence.

“This race will be hard because it’s quite long and you have many parts. You have Indian Ocean, Pacific Ocean, and after Cape Horn it’s not finished because it’s quite tricky with the forecast.”

Speaking to Eurosport, for which she is a regular contributor, Davies says: “It is incredible to be able to participate in something that has never been done before.

“That’s what made me want to come. It’s a challenge to be able to set off into the unknown, because if you know this journey through the Vendee Globe, it will be nothing like it.”

Eurosport has more on the story HERE.