The Ocean Race: The Heroic Deed of Will Harris - previously unreleased footage

• M You can find more information about the book here ...
• The YACHT summary of the third leg in the video

How the Mast drama really unfolded

When she switches on her iPhone as soon as she lands in São Paulo, Holly Cova realises that something must be wrong. She has flown from Cape Town to Brazil with part of the commercial team. From here, she wants to accompany the race and prepare for the stage stop in Itajaí - now routine for the Malizia team director. After her phone logs onto the mobile network in the Brazilian metropolis, the small red window on the right above the WhatsApp icon shows more than 400 new messages - after just nine hours offline. Something can't be right.

On the way to passport control, the crisis-tested manager has already gained an initial overview of the situation. In the winding queue in front of the immigration counters, she makes her first phone call to Boris Herrmann. He is at sea - and on the ground.

First the code zero is lost

In the evening hours of the third of March, only the second day of this monster stage lasting up to 40 days, Code Zero fell into the water on the German boat. After a tough start, "Malizia - Seaexplorer" is in third place with good prospects. Initially, all the crew's attention is focussed on recovering the huge sail.

It measures 220 square metres, far more than the living space of an average detached house, and is made of heavy laminate. At first it is still half hanging in the rigging, flapping wildly, half already overboard. By the time the crew are in their oilskins and on deck, it has wrapped itself around the port foil. The halyard by which it was pulled into the mast gives way more and more. Boris Herrmann cuts the light but high-strength Dyneema braid. He then secures Will Harris, who climbs over the ship's side onto the orange-red painted hydrofoil.

The co-skipper has already done this once before, on the return passage to the Route du Rhum in the North Atlantic, in similar conditions: force six winds, three to four metres of swell. Will does not hesitate. With his knife, he painstakingly cuts through the expensive cloth, which they won't be able to use again until Itajaí. But that doesn't matter now. Just get rid of the sail, don't risk any consequential damage and get going again as quickly as possible.

Troubleshooting postponed

Because it is pitch dark when the dripping wet Code Zero finally disappears into the sail's load, they postpone troubleshooting until the next morning. Perhaps only the locking mechanism of the top fitting that releases the halyard and holds the sail in position has failed.

It wouldn't be the first time; there are always problems like this. Boris Herrmann had similar problems during the last Vendée Globe in the South Atlantic. Back then, he had to climb the mast alone because he is afraid of heights. Tomorrow morning, Rosalin Kuiper, who enjoys such excursions to the tenth floor and is not afraid of anything else, will do it for him.

Before setting off from Cape Town, she said: "When I go sailing, I always prepare myself to go to war. I prepare to break myself completely, mentally and physically. Anything less bad I take as a great gift." Boris said: "I'm a bit tense. It's important to me that we arrive and that we sail well because this is the climax of the Ocean Race. I always seem to worry quite a lot. And that's the case again now."

In his kit bag he has the Norwegian jumper that has already become his trademark at the Vendée, a kind of lucky charm. This time it's white, not red like his big solo two years ago. Everyone in the crew has one. Boris will put it on for the first time the next day. The team has a tough day ahead of them, the toughest of the entire Ocean Race.

Nasty surprise the next day

When it is light the next morning, Boris peers up the mast with his binoculars, takes photos with his smartphone and asks Antoine Auriol to do the same with his higher-resolution professional camera. Boris already had a bad feeling that evening, and what he sees confirms his concern. Something inside him tightens. Far up in the top of the 300,000 euro profile mast of "Malizia - Seaexplorer" a crack can be seen. The halyard that the skipper had cut is stuck in it.

In the cockpit, the crew holds an initial briefing. There is an unusual heaviness in the air. "Fuck!" Boris exclaims. He doesn't sound angry, but resigned. "I'm a bit groggy at the moment," he says. Will Harris is optimistic: "Let's see how bad it really is." He has a feeling that the gap in the mast is "only so big", he says. He spreads the thumb and index finger of his right hand slightly, perhaps seven or eight centimetres. That wouldn't be too tragic, it could be repaired.

When you look down, you realise how high up you are"

Then they crank Rosie into the rig. She hangs in a climbing harness on a second halyard, which also leads up to the top of the mast. She is connected to the crew in the cockpit via a Bluetooth headset and has a smartphone, Gopro camera, measuring tape and a permanent marker with her. "When you're up there, you just concentrate on getting the job done," she says. "When you look down, you realise how high up you are, how small - and how big the ocean around you is."

The first stocktaking

Rosie takes her time to document the damage in detail. Everything will depend on her assessment later, especially the decision as to whether the gap can be repaired at all. She measures its length and writes the information on the black-painted carbon fibre profile, which looks like it has been roughly sawn open and has sharp splinters sticking out of the gap.

The gap is not seven centimetres long, as Will Harris had hoped, but 26 centimetres, almost four times as long. And what looks even more threatening is that it ends just a hand span above the lashings of the upper shrouds - the cables that hold the mast in position at the side.

How exactly this happened will only become clear later. One thing is clear: the eye fitting of the stainless steel hook, which is designed for a breaking load of 16 tonnes and through which the halyard runs, must have broken. As a result, the Code Zero was only hanging on the halyard, whose running path in the rig is not intended for this load at all. It is actually deflected downwards via the pulley in the top fitting, which hangs on a lashing, and fed into the inside of the mast via an unreinforced slot. However, when the fitting broke, the deflection was missing. The slotted hole was now the uppermost point of load bearing. The halyard sawed its way through the carbon fibre layers of the wing mast for several minutes under the Code Zero's pull, which weighed several tonnes.

Help from outside

Photos of the rift are sent to the technical team on land via satellite. The Imocas have a permanent connection to the internet; everyone on board can send messages, photos and short videos via Wi-Fi, usually using the messenger service WhatsApp, the main communication channel for Malizia. For cases like this, there is a dedicated chat group that connects sailors, team management and technicians: "Malizia@Sea". Two members are practically always on call: New Zealander Stu McLachlan, the most experienced boat captain and the calmest of the bunch. And Holly Cova - when she's not on a plane to São Paulo.

The procedure in the event of damage is that the relevant specialists are activated via "Malizia@Sea". They can often help directly. Sometimes, however, when things get more complicated, the technicians move the analysis and solution finding to a separate WhatsApp group, bypassing the sailors, so that they are not unnecessarily unsettled and can keep the boat on course for the time being.

When the rig comes, that's it"

That was the case on the previous stage, when Will found the cracks on the aft edge of the foil shaft during one of his routine checks. It's like that again now. There is temporary radio silence on the team's internal emergency channel.

But the sailors can't stop thinking about what has happened to their mast, how badly it was damaged the previous night. Once again they stand and sit together in the cockpit, while the boat slowly makes its way westwards under mainsail only, as if wingless. Everyone looks dismayed. "If the top part of the mast breaks, we can still sail home," says Boris. "If the rig comes down, it could get pretty complicated. We could be picked up by a freighter and that would be it. End of story!"

Hectic at the land team

Meanwhile, Holly Cova, still tired after the long transatlantic flight, has suddenly switched to crisis mode in São Paulo. She asks Lucia Nebreda and Marie Lefloch, who are travelling with her, to guide her through the crowds so that she can read and type messages on the long routes through the airport. Her eyes are constantly glued to the display. She knows what is at stake. And she suspects what the gap in the mast is doing to the crew, especially the skipper.

A mast breakage in the Southern Ocean would be the "worst case scenario"

She immediately realises that there is little time to make the most elementary decision: turn back or, if possible, repair. "A broken mast in the Southern Ocean would be the worst case scenario," she says. Boris' voice sounds weak.

For him, Holly is now not only the one who holds the place together, but also his friend and closest confidante. "I'm pretty disappointed at the moment," he says, on the verge of tears. "Of course," she says, "of course!" A little later, she reflects on the situation: "I tried to keep a clear head, because I could hear that Boris was pretty worried. I just wanted to be there for him to support him and encourage him, whatever decision he made."

Boris Herrmann is desperate

Boris also finds support on board. Rosie senses how much the incident is bringing him to his knees. He designed "Malizia - Seaexplorer" for the Southern Ocean. He had already said in Alicante that this stage was particularly close to his heart. "This is the highlight for me!" he said at the skippers' press conference before the start. Now all that is at stake.

Rosie tries to change his mind: "We're here, in the Southern Ocean, we have wonderful sunshine, we have good conversations." Boris says: "That's positive thinking. If we manage to sail to the finish, that would be a huge success. At the moment, we couldn't be further away from it. We have a broken mast, no wind." The boat staggers as if drunk in the oxbow lake. "I'm so glad I'm not alone. It would be a horror to be alone. It's already so difficult for me with this crew. Alone? I don't know..." Then he squints his eyes, waves awkwardly and breaks off.

But he is not alone. He has four strong characters around him and a capable team on land who, although scattered across three continents and living in different time zones after leaving South Africa, get to work in no time. A small team of experts under the technical leadership of Jesse Naimark-Rowse works out whether and how the gap can be closed. Jesse looks at the construction drawings from the mast builders at Lorima in France, discusses them with the boat's designers and makes his own calculations. Stu McLachlan goes through the parts lists with the material on board: Amount of resin, hardener, carbon fibre scrims, glue, foils. "At the moment, it feels like we're on an Apollo mission in space," says Holly Cova.

Repair instructions per PDF

With the support of his colleagues, Jesse Naimark-Rowse devises a repair manual. The PDF is eleven pages long and describes the work processes step by step, including a meticulous timeline of when each operation has to be carried out. He is sitting in Bristol, in his "nice, warm, dry home office", and has to think for sailors who are demoralised, tired and discouraged. "We have to be super precise," he says. Because the crew only has one chance. There is not enough material for more.

While Kevin Escoffier with Holcim - PRB is setting the pace at the front, always logging between 15 and 20 knots, "Malizia" is falling far behind. One day after the problem with the Code Zero, she is already more than 200 nautical miles behind. Other teams are also affected by problems. On 11th Hour Racing, two headsails go to pieces and later the crew discovers cracks in both rudders. And this is just the beginning of a seemingly endless chain of damage. After a stumbling start in Cape Town, Biotherm is also unable to stop tinkering, has to rework the mainsheet traveller and repair a winch. On top of that, a foil is broken.

Guyot Environnement - Team Europe was hit the hardest. The core material in the bottom of the hull detaches from the inner and outer carbon layer. The laminate rises and falls during the pitching in the wave. The hull could break at any moment. Benjamin Dutreux has no choice but to turn back. The repairs in Cape Town later proved to be so extensive that the crew had to abandon the leg.

The race concept is called into question

Is this the moment of truth for the Imocas, so early on? Are the boats, as sceptics have argued, too delicate to withstand the extra weight and tougher conditions compared to the single-handed Vendée Globe? Even Richard Brisius, CEO of the Ocean Race, had a queasy feeling before the start of the queen's stage. He has sailed the race twice himself and knows all about the hardships of the Southern Ocean. When he saw the teams off at the jetty, there was also concern for their safety. "You should never forget how serious this leg is, what can happen on the open sea when human ambition and cutting-edge technology come together."

For this reason, all teams with the exception of Biotherm had their boats extensively checked and serviced in Cape Town. All the rigs were pulled and checked, as they were potentially the weakest point. The new foils produce so much lift at high speed that the boats hardly lean to one side, which would minimise wind pressure. They hold so strongly against the forces of the sails and mast that the latter can reach its load limit. But it's not just the rig that requires the utmost attention during preparation.

Not the only damage

Team Malizia has another serious problem: the boat produces such a shrill, loud, all-pervading screech above 20 knots that Rosalin Kuiper suffered temporary tinnitus on stage two.

This is why the boat builders sand the thin aft edges of the keel, foils and rudders, which are only a few millimetres thick, at an angle in alternating directions. This is intended to minimise the vibrations caused by eddies and amplified by the carbon hull - similar to the body of a guitar, only much louder. It sounds like you're standing at the very front of the speaker towers at a rock concert, says Will, who is still able to put up with it to some extent. "Yes, but with really bad music," adds Rosie.

As they leave the calm zone south-west of the tip of Africa behind them after the start of leg three, travelling fast for the first time, they can hardly believe their luck: The noise is gone, at least for the most part. The screeching has given way to a sonorous howl.

The race abandonment is being considered

But now the gap in the mast is tugging at the nerves of the Malizia crew. Jesse has sent the PDF to the sailors. If they manage to carry out the repairs described there, the rig should hold. But the swell is still terrible. Boris calls his team leader again. He asks her whether she thinks the risk of continuing to sail is justifiable. Holly replies immediately: "I think you should try the repair and then see if you're happy with it. That's the most important thing. That's my feeling."

Sometimes carrying on is an even greater triumph"

Boris: "If the repair doesn't work, I think we'll have to turn back." Holly: "Yes." And after a short pause: "It would be great to have a perfect boat and for everything to work perfectly, of course. But there's also a lot to be said for fixing the problem and moving on. Sometimes that's the even bigger triumph, you know?" Boris, despondent: "Yes." He doesn't sound very convinced. Holly: "We can talk on the phone again. See how you get on."

Come on, let's get going!"

It is Will Harris who finally takes the initiative. Fed up with waiting for better conditions, he says impatiently: "Come on, let's get going!" It still takes several minutes before he is ready. "The hardest part was the preparation," he says later in a long audio message. "What do I need for the work? What do I wear? Once you're at the top, you don't want to come back down just because you've forgotten something. So you have to think of everything."

The repair is being prepared

He puts on his heavy weather trousers, which have foam padding on the knees, as well as his boots, helmet and thickly lined thermal jacket. "I thought they would cushion the impact on the mast a bit. That worked too. But I got sooo hot when sanding the repair area! Just being wedged against the mast brings your heart rate close to the limit. Then you tense your muscles even more to minimise the risk of injury - and all that in winter clothes! I could feel the sweat running down my whole body. Probably one of the hottest moments I've ever experienced."

I had to be extremely careful when the next wave came"

Having reached the top at a height of around 27 metres, he ties himself down with a Zeising, which is normally used to lash sails to the deck or the main boom. He hooks one foot behind the upper shroud. That way he is halfway fixed. "I still had to be extremely careful about when the next wave was coming and in which direction it would throw me. Once or twice I was surprised by a pendulum motion. It knocks you from one side of the mast to the other. At one point, I got really angry with the waves because they weren't obeying me - probably a result of fatigue, exhaustion and overheating."

The repair begins

The 29-year-old has a battery-powered angle grinder with him to roughen the mast. "It takes off quite a bit. That's why I had to be careful not to grind too deeply into the outer carbon fibre layer and certainly not to get to the lashings of the upper shrouds that hold the mast. It's not easy when you're hanging up there and feel like someone is constantly shaking you."

In the end, he reworks the area by hand with sandpaper. "That went pretty well. But I rammed a carbon splinter into the heel of my hand. I was able to pull it out with my teeth. That was lucky, because if it had broken off in my hand ... Not good!"

How were the others supposed to get me down safely?"

Height is not an issue for Will. He is a climber and trains regularly at home, indoors or outdoors. What worries him is losing consciousness. "If I had hit my head hard and fainted, I would no longer have any control over my body. How would the others be able to get me down safely, the way I had secured myself?"

And once again up the mast

After sanding, he lets himself be roped down, washes the carbon fibre dust off his face and lies down to sleep for half an hour. He then eats something while the others prepare the laminate strips on the floor of the crew quarters - which is also a challenge because the work has to be done very precisely. This alone takes Rosie and Boris three hours. Meanwhile, Nico Lunven sails the ship alone.

Then Will goes back up the mast. "I didn't expect to stay up there until dark, to be honest." But that's how it turns out. The swell is still lousy. A light breeze at least gets the ship moving, which stabilises its movements somewhat. However, the wind continues to pick up during lamination. "Malizia" sails hard into the sea. Will Harris groans. "Ooohhh, stop, stop - big wave!"

Rosie and Boris transport the pre-soaked carbon fibre patches upwards in a blue bucket. While Nico Lunven tries to slow the ship down, Will coats the sanded repair area with Spabond, an extremely strong structural adhesive.

Then it gets tricky for him again. He has to precisely align and press on three packages of six layers of carbon fibre fabric - "without being thrown into it". It's like a complicated circus act. "You have this heavy carbon fibre patch in your hand, full of fresh resin, and you have to apply it to the sanded area in a controlled manner." Venting the air is also complicated. "I had to keep myself and all the lines, carabiners and other stuff hanging on me away from the laminate. That took about 45 minutes. And I only just managed to tape the area before my legs were completely covered in acid. In the end, I really hurried. The taping took another 20 minutes."

Will takes one last video in the dark. He hangs next to the carbon patch, which is covered with blue tape to prevent it from slipping and getting damp at night. "Huge effort from the team," he says, having done the hardest job at the top. "Now I'm curious to see if we can get back into the race." In his bunk a little later, cramps are running through his overworked leg muscles.

Now Rosie Kuiper has to go upstairs

The next day, Rosie sands down excess resin residue at the top and taps the repair area with a ring spanner to determine from the noise whether the laminate is fully adhered - which is audibly the case. "Well done, William!" she exclaims. "When you do a job well, it makes you so happy!"

The boat is already sailing at more than 10 knots again in fresh winds, still without a headsail because the crew don't want to put too much strain on the mast too soon. The epoxy resin still has to harden completely in the coolness of the Southern Ocean. But on 3 March, day five of the leg has just begun, "Malizia" is back under full sail. She is now the last of the four remaining Imocas in the race.

Up there you have powers that you would never have on land"

"The mast action really drained my body," says Rosalin. "When you're up there, the adrenaline gives you strength that you would never have on land. Afterwards, you feel exhausted, as if you've been run over by a lorry. But it also gives me the feeling of being alive, and it's part of the sport that I love: persevering, pushing boundaries, getting the most out of myself every day."

Will Harris, man of the moment, says: "We're back on track. We've made it. The boat is doing 25 knots. The race is definitely on. Really cool!"

The race to catch up begins

And how it continues! On day eight, "Malizia - Seaexplorer" moved up to third place, passing 11th Hour shortly before the scoring gate at the height of Western Australia and passing the mark in second place. In the Pacific, she finally proves her true strength, which she had already shown in the final third of the second leg: whenever it gets uncomfortable, no other boat can follow her, not even the "Holcim - PRB", which dominates for long stretches. From the 105th degree of longitude, "Malizia" asserted itself at the head of the field.

The drone footage that the crews send from on board gives an idea of what it's like on the ships down there, near the 50th parallel. On their foils, they sometimes fly over the waves, but often they crash into them unchecked, causing a tremor to run through the entire rig. If the bow of the boat drifts into the sea, it lifts the stern, the rudders dive out, and then the wind and waves decide which side the boat lies on.

If it is pushed to windward, into the wind, it can be brought back on course relatively quickly. At best, this takes less than a minute. Worse than such a sun shot is a patent jibe. Then the boat is on the other side, the wrong side: the keel is to leeward, increasing the heel even more, the main is torn around by the wind and gets caught in the backstay. It usually takes the whole crew to sort out this mess, which can easily damage the sail and rigging.

"Malizia- Seaexplorer" proves its worth

With her extreme spoon bow and ballast trimmed aft, "Malizia" is not entirely immune to such unwanted actions, but is far less at risk. And so the respect and recognition of the competition for the comparatively massive VPLP design grows with each passing day. Even Kevin Escoffier, who comes closest to following the German Imoca, later says in a small circle: "It's a very interesting concept for the Vendée Globe."

After Cape Horn, in the chaotic conditions of the South Atlantic, which is even more challenging for crews than the Southern Ocean, the experienced skipper and engineer stays close to the surface. But shortly before Itajaí, in the last low, his autopilot fails twice. In gusts of 40 knots, the Swiss boat stays on its side for a long time, partly filling up with water through the aft cockpit opening, while Boris, Will, Rosie, Nico and Antoine ride off the front unchallenged in their offshore SUV. It's the preliminary decision.

And so the miracle that the skipper had not dared to hope for at the beginning actually happens: On the night of the 34th day at sea, "Malizia - Seaexplorer" is the first to arrive in Itajaí and wins the longest leg in 50 years of Ocean Race history. With incredible motivation, resilience and total commitment, the sailors defied fate in a turn of events that even the experts had hardly thought possible, mended the mast and completed a legendary comeback.

You can push your boundaries"

Despite the loss of time due to the mast repair, they finish first, jumping from fourth to second place in the overall standings. And what's even better: they were the fastest between Cape Town and Cape Horn. Boris Herrmann's name now stands alongside those of all the other greats of the race, engraved on the prestigious Roaring Forties Trophy. An achievement that will stay with him forever and will be remembered by generations of German sailors after him.

"It's not a fun sport, this kind of sailing," he says. "You demand a lot from yourself. And then you realise again and again that you can do it, you can push your limits. And you also learn something about yourself."

The triumph in Brazil

On land, in Itajaí, after more than a month of exertion, after weeks of trepidation right up to the end - first whether the mast would hold, then whether the lead over Holcim would be enough - he is so full of endorphins that he can't rest even when all the obligatory appointments of such a triumphant arrival have been completed: TV interviews, award ceremony, autographs, a first online press conference.

Like all the crew, the team has booked him a room at the Hilton, several kilometres away from the hustle and bustle of the Race Village, with a pool, spa and room service. But Boris doesn't want to be alone, doesn't want to retreat. Not now. Days later, he is still partying in a small beach bar south of Itajaí until the early hours of the morning. So much, so much, so big, so moving the experiences on this, his stage.

It's not just the sporting success, it's not just the highs and lows of the mast repair. In the end, he was able to validate the design of "Malizia" over almost 15,000 nautical miles, perhaps the most important success for him.

All together we create something great"

And almost incidentally, his team is setting a new standard for on-board reporting. The videos produced by Antoine Auriol are unrivalled. The German-Frenchman is the only person to provide live commentary on drone footage from the crew - and as the self-appointed "Fly Captain", he himself becomes a character actor. Together with Rosie, Boris launches a podcast in the middle of the Southern Ocean, "Off Watch", which provides deep insights into the sailors' inner lives. Never before have fans been able to be so close to the action. Even when the Dutchwoman flies out of her bunk in a wave off Cape Horn and across the cabin, cameras and microphones are rolling. Her dressing and bravery earned her the nickname "Pirate Rosie".

The response is even greater than for Boris' Vendée Globe. While public interest in France remains below expectations, his fans love the race. A good half of all hits on the Ocean Race website come from German-speaking countries.

At the team party the evening after the finish, he says: "There are so many small steps that make up success. Each one is seemingly insignificant, not very glamorous. But all of them together create something big."

The book about the race

"Boris Herrmann and the race around the world"

• H Order here (available from 20.7.2023) ...

With this illustrated text book, you will be up close and personal: at the christening of the new high-tech yacht "Malizia Seaexplorer", at the first tests of the racing projectile, at the growing together of the team, at all the highs and lows of the prestigious sailing race around the world! In addition to spectacular sailing pictures from the race and directly from on board, the official Ocean Race book also contains a personal foreword by Boris Herrmann.

The YACHT summary of the third leg in the video