The Ocean Race is a crewed round-the-world stage race of great difficulty. Find the news and investigations of Tip & Shaft on the subject.
On Thursday the Holcim group announced that they have chosen Nicolas Lunven to replace Kevin Escoffier at the helm of the Imoca Holcim-PRB for the 2024 Vendée Globe. The Dutch sailor Rosalin Kuiper will then succeed him for The Ocean Race Europe 2025. Tip & Shaft explains how this decision was made.
The 2023 edition of The Ocean Race finished in Genova with victory for the US team 11th Hour Racing Team ahead of Holcim-PRB and Team Malizia. Tip & Shaft now examines the event with some proper experts with an insider’s view.
In Brest on Wednesday Bertrand Quéguiner and Elodie Bonafous formalized the launch of Horizon 29 Offshore Racing team which is aiming for the Vendée Globe 2028 with a new Verdier design which expected to launch in January 2025. Tip & Shaft tells you more.
Last weekend out of the blue Kevin Escoffier announced that he was stepping down as skipper of Holcim-PRB for the final weeks of The Ocean Race following an “alleged incident” with a woman from his team in Newport before the start of the fifth stage. Since then the French Sailing Federation has taken up the case, Tip & Shaft took stock of this sensitive matter.
Finishing up with Team Malizia’s victory ahead of Team Holcim-PRB, the third leg of The Ocean Race was full of twists and turns, a giant stage – the longest ever-lasting more than 35 days. Meteo ace Christian Dumard, Imoca skippers Charlie Dalin and Thomas Ruyant, designers Quentin Lucet (VPLP Design) and Hervé Penfornis (Guillaume Verdier), Antoine Mermod, president of Imoca, as well as The Ocean Race director Johan Salén, speak to Tip and Shaft to give us their first assessment.
After leaving Cape Town on February 26 bound for Itajai, the third leg of The Ocean Race is the longest in the history of the race (12,750 miles). The current leader is Holcim PRB. As they approach the Tasmanian gate, Tip & Shaft plays back the first bit of the leg with Christian Dumard, weather specialist for the race, Yann Eliès, who raced the second leg on Malizia-Seaxplorer and Hubert Lemonnier the sports and operations manager for Imoca.
Between the “Clarisse Crémer affair” and The Ocean Race, Imoca is top of the news agendas at the moment and so a good time for for Tip & Shaft to speak with the president of the class, Antoine Mermod.
At the end of the first leg of The Ocean Race between Alicante and Cape Verde (see the tracker), Tip & Shaft spoke with Sébastien Simon (32), crew member of Guyot Environnement-Team Europe which he will now join for the second stage towards Cape Town.
On Sunday five Imocas set off for the 14th edition of The Ocean Race (formerly the Whitbread and Volvo Ocean Race), with the first of seven stages racing between Alicante and Cape Verde. At the same time, six VO65s started The Ocean Race VO65 Sprint Cup, a short format race comprising three stages. It is a good opportunity for Tip & Shaft to catch up with Johan Salén, co-owner of the race around the world.
The start of The Ocean Race which will be sailed in Imocas for the first time (*) is set to be on January 15 from Alicante for a first leg heading to Cape Verde. As well as the actual sporting challenge there is a big logistical challenge for the teams involved, particularly as four of them were on the Route du Rhum during November. Here Tip & Shaft assess the human, technical and financial resources required to deal with these challenges.
Fifth in the 2020 Vendée Globe, Boris Herrmann very quickly started a new campaign with more means and a new boat designed by VPLP and built by Multiplast. Tip & Shaft talked to the German about this project and about the environmental concerns that are dear to him.
On November 4th the organizers of The Ocean Race announced that the start of the next edition would be postponed by around two months and that the new course would be altered to remove planned stops in China and New Zealand. What is the purpose of these changes? Will they attract more Imoca teams? Tip & Shaft investigates.
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