The Ocean Race: Sweet home win for 11th Hour Racing, Malizia follows with pride
Tatjana Pokorny
· 10.05.2023
This victory is doubly sweet for the US team 11th Hour Racing: the crew led by skipper Charlie Enright not only won the fourth Ocean Race leg from Brazil to the American east coast. The longed-for first stage win also came right on time for the Americans, who were co-favourites before the start of the race but were plagued by material problems on course for their home port of Newport. "Mālama" crossed the finish line on the evening of 10 May at 20:41 German time after 17 days, 2 hours, 26 minutes and 41 seconds with an overjoyed crew.
They are heroes in my view." Boris Herrmann
Team Malizia's sailing quartet led by British skipper Will Harris crossed the finish line 31 minutes and 41 seconds later. And that after a leg distance of 5500 nautical miles! The two dominant boats of the fourth leg had previously fought a varied and exciting duel in the second half of the leg with 16 lead changes since 30 April. Boris Herrmann, who watched the final from Hamburg, said: "I'm really proud of my team! First or second on this stage - that's no indication of how the race will end. Now it's getting really exciting!"
Boris Herrmann, who will rejoin his team in Newport on 15 May and is looking forward to the start of the fifth stage in Aarhus, Denmark, continued: "The crew did a perfect job. They are heroes in my view. They have delivered super good seamanship. We saw sport at a high level. The kind of yacht racing that you thought was only possible with one-design boats. We saw that they were very close together right to the end. That really gives us courage for the next stages of the Ocean Race."
The decisive key scene in the battle between two evenly matched teams
The fact that his team Malizia had lost the duel with 11th Hour Racing by such a narrow margin did not upset the 41-year-old: "The boys and Rosie should celebrate properly tonight. And from 21 May, we'll be sailing hard upwind and attacking at full speed." Boris Herrmann also sees the night of 8 May as a decisive key scene in the battle for this stage victory.
Team Malizia got caught in the clouds and lost 25 nautical miles within a few hours. Will Harris, Rosalin Kuiper, navigator Nico "The Brain" Lunven" and Christpher Pratt never gave up and came within seven nautical miles of the Americans in the calm on the final morning. But that was as good as it got in the wind, which finally freshened up again, and 11th Hour Racing sailed to a celebrated home victory in Newport.
Thoughts and good wishes for Team Guyot
Paul Meilhat's Team Biotherm was expected to be the third boat in Newport. The leading overall favourites from the Swiss team Holcim-PRB had to abandon the leg on 27 April when their mast broke. The same fate later befell the French-German team Guyot, which lost its mast on Tuesday night and is now motoring towards the finish harbour. It remains to be seen if and when the team will be able to return to the race after their second stage cancellation.
Boris Herrmann's thoughts and good wishes on the final day of the fourth stage were also directed towards Guyot Environnement - Team Europe. "Of course we hope to get them back in the race. It would be a great loss not to have the team in the race. I also have the impression that their withdrawal is really bad luck. We all have the same one-design masts. The boat was very well tested, very well maintained and very well handled by its crew. The sail area was reduced to a minimum when the mast broke. So it remains to be seen what exactly happened."
You can't conclude that the Imoca class has unstable masts." Boris Herrmann
Team Malizia's founder and skipper continued: "It doesn't sound like they pushed very hard. Was it extreme sea conditions or did some stupid material error get in the way? But you can't conclude from the two mast breaks on this leg that the Imoca class has unstable masts and that there is a fundamental problem. These are simply statistical deviations - an anomaly - that we have two mast breaks on one leg. Much to the chagrin of Guyot in particular. Which I'm incredibly sorry about."
Boris Herrmann also described Team Guyot's cancellation of another leg with regard to co-skipper Robert Stanjek and Phillip Kasüske as a "loss for the German fan community" and said he hoped that "things can be put right again". For now, however, the team must first make it safely ashore. "Up there in the rough North Atlantic," Herrmann said of the mastless Imoca heading for Newport, "I wouldn't want to be in their place right now."
An Ocean Race interim result that brings new excitement
The results of the fourth leg bring new excitement to the Ocean Race: Team Holcim-PRB defends its lead with 19 points ahead of teams 11th Hour Racing and Malizia (both 18) in second and third place. Team Biotherm (13) and Team Guyot (2) follow in the intermediate classification after four of seven stages. The fifth and double-rated transatlantic stage to Aarhus in Denmark starts on 21 May.
