The fan groups on social media erupted in spontaneous jubilation on Monday afternoon when Team Malizia took the lead on the afternoon of 6 February. The team and their supporters had had to wait a long time for this. With a gap of more than 200 nautical miles, Team Malizia had been struggling in the meantime. Now the comeback is here. After persistently positioning themselves to the west, skipper Will Harris, navigator Nico Lunven, Rosalin Kuiper and Yann Eliès managed to jump on the fast eastbound train with good timing.
With top speeds of up to around 25 knots and 18 knots in the most recent 24-hour average, "Malizia - Seaexplorer" has been chasing the competition over the past two days. At the beginning of the week, the tracker showed the German-flagged Imoca as the leader for the first time at 3 pm. One hour later, the lead over Kevin Escoffier's Team Holcim - PRB with Susann Beucke had already increased from 0.9 to 3.1 nautical miles.
"Malizia - Seaexplorer" in its element, Team Guyot falls behind
And Team Malizia kept pushing the accelerator pedal in winds of 17 to 20 knots, taking advantage of a small depression to ride towards the South African coast. Most recently, "Malizia - Seaexplorer" completed 435 nautical miles in 24 hours. "This is so cool! It's magical when you consider that we were more than 200 nautical miles behind. We are so happy to see these results," said the delighted Dutch Malizia sailor Rosalin Kuiper.
Up until Paul Meilhat's fourth-placed "Biotherm", the boats were close together on the second Ocean Race leg with just under 2,000 nautical miles to the finish line off Cape Town. Team Malizia and Team Biotherm were separated by just 35 nautical miles on Monday afternoon. Guyot Environnement - Team Europe was the only team to fall far behind. Berlin skipper Robert Stanjek and the Franco-German crew with navigator Seb Simon, Anne-Claire le Berre and Phillip Kasüske had 245.5 nautical miles to make up on Team Malizia on Monday afternoon. The second attempt to shorten the course to Cape Town in the doldrums with an easterly position had backfired. The burst spinnaker had put additional strain on the "Guyot" team.
Off to the south: the fleet takes off for the finale
However, the battle for the podium places on leg two is far from decided after around two thirds of the route. The teams can expect at least one more doldrums test on course for Cape Town on this eventful second of seven Ocean Race legs. It can still be assumed that the boats will dip deep into the south in order to approach the South African harbour metropolis from the south if possible. In this way, they want to better counter the doldrums that could spread out in front of the finish line according to some forecasts.
Boris Herrmann: "Now there's a Southern Ocean feeling"
Boris Herrmann, who is recovering from a scalded foot in Cape Town and is expecting his team there, gave YACHT online an up-to-date forecast for the coming days: "Now it's time for cold fronts and areas of low pressure in the Southern Ocean. It's getting cold! We'll be sailing close to the ice edge. So it's going to be a real Southern Ocean week. The boats are currently expected to arrive on 11 or 12 February. Provisions will have to be rationed. So there will be a bit of a Southern Ocean feeling over the next few days. Temperatures may drop to 15 or even ten degrees. You can see that on the database on our team website."
Here is a clip from the day before, when Team Malizia launched the buoy to collect scientific data in the South Atlantic:
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
