Light and shifty winds are making the second half of the first day of racing in the Ocean Race Atlantic an even tougher challenge for the entire fleet than had already been expected. After the start, the course headed sharply south, before a U-turn followed overnight. The entire fleet is now sailing north again.
Ocean Race Atlantic: the fleet battles its way through the wall of calm
The leading “Malizia 4” and its pursuers are having to contend with very light winds of barely a handful of knots, which have built up ahead of them like a wall of calm stretching from north to south. On Thursday morning German time, during the early stages of the Ocean Race Atlantic, boat speeds ranged between six and eight knots, and at times were significantly lower.
Day one of the race, the first 24 hours, was still underway at sea. It is keeping the teams busier and more on their toes than expected. “We’re ready and we’ll be pushing our boat to its limits right across the course,” Boris Herrmann had said before the start. For now, however, Team Malizia, along with all the other crews, must be patient and put the ‘Malizia 4’ – which will be just two months old this coming Sunday – through its paces.
Before the race began, “United by the Ocean” skipper Paul Meilhat had suggested that several boats had a chance of winning this race. Then “Malizia 4” The Ocean Race Atlantic got off to a spectacular start, winning the first of the daily Supersprints and making their mark on the fleet early on.
The “German powerhouse” continues to lead the field
In the tracker standings – which once again provided a more accurate picture of the positions on the morning of 3 September – “Malizia 4” was leading the race at around 8.00 am German time, some seven nautical miles ahead of the two 2022-design boats, “11th Hour Racing” (formerly “Malizia 3”) and “United by the Ocean”.
At the rear of the small but highly intriguing fleet in the Ocean Race Atlantic were, initially, the new Japanese yacht “DMG Mori Global One”, skippered by Kojiro Shiraishi, and the outsider “MSIG Europe”, skippered by Conrad Colman, were initially trailing the “German powerhouse” by around 19 and 32 nautical miles, respectively, as commentator Niall Myant-Best had put it during the start broadcast.
Important note: The live broadcast featuring images and audio from See will begin on 3 September at 5 pm. You can watch the programme on YouTube here.
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
