The second leg of the Ocean Race Europe premiere is underway: Team 11th Hour Racing with restart after collision shock

The second leg of the Ocean Race Europe is underway. The starting shots for the five Imoca yachts and the seven VO65 yachts were fired off Cascais (Portugal) early Sunday afternoon from 2.00 pm German time. The middle section of the Southern European sailing three-parter will take the teams around 700 nautical miles to Alicante in Spain, the home port of The Ocean Race organisers. Around six hours after the start of the race on Sunday evening, the German "Einstein" with skipper Robert Stanjek (Berlin) was in second place in a field that had temporarily shrunk to four Imocas shortly after the start.

What happened? After a collision with a small spectator boat at anchor, the US team 11th Hour Racing, which was leading the overall standings in the Imoca fleet, had to return to the harbour to check the yacht for damage. The scene caused a scare during the live broadcast. The people involved on both boats were uninjured in the incident. The spectator boat was able to reach the starting harbour under its own power - escorted for safety by an escort boat from the 11th Hour Racing team - as was the US yacht itself, whose crew only saw the anchored boat at the last second. The helmsman was only just able to pull the rudder round and thus prevented worse.

"We take full responsibility"

In a later statement from Team 11th Hour Racing, skipper Charlie Enright said: "We were able to confirm to the race management that everyone on the powerboat was OK and we sent a group from our shore crew to escort them into the marina, which they managed to do under their own steam. I can also confirm that everyone in our team is OK. We take full responsibility for what happened on the water today. We are back in the harbour and investigating what happened to our boat. We have definitely suffered damage to our port foil. We are working with our shore team and designers to find out what this means for our participation." Enright's team was able to give the all-clear just two hours later with the announcement that his crew would resume the race that same evening. That has since happened.

The fleet of twelve boats from nine countries is expected to arrive in Alicante on Wednesday morning. The course involves overcoming heavy weather in the Strait of Gibraltar and flat winds in the Mediterranean. "We already had injuries on the first leg and have increased our safety measures," said AmberSail 2 skipper Rokas Milevičius (Lithuania). Eike Schurr, onboard reporter from Bremen working for The Austrian Ocean Race Project on leg two, also reported shortly before the start and his own premiere in this race: "We are expecting winds of around 35 knots in the Strait of Gibraltar. That will be challenging."

At around 8 p.m. on the start day of the leg, Thomas Ruyant's lightning starter "LinkedOut" was still in the lead among the Imocas. Close behind, Offshore Team Germany and the new French "Bureau Vallée" were putting pressure on the front runner, a good four nautical miles behind. In the fleet of VO65 yachts, the Mirpuri Foundation Racing Team led ahead of Team Childhood I and Bouwe Bekking's Team Sailing Poland before the start of the first night at sea. The Austrian team leading the overall standings in this class was initially in seventh and last place, but shone in the evening with the fastest speed in the VO65 fleet at more than 20 knots.

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