Team Malizia (GER) won the IMOCA In-Port Race in Alicante on Sunday afternoon (8 January) after a frenetic battle to close the first day of action in The Ocean Race 2022-23 — one that saw four of the five boats in their fleet hold the lead at some point during a highly unpredictable and nerve-wracking contest.

Fastest starter in about nine knots of wind was Biotherm (FRA) skippered by Paul Meilhat. However, a smaller J2 headsail choice worked well for 11th Hour Racing Team (USA), skippered today by Simon Fisher. The American boat semi-foiled into a small lead by the first turning mark.

At the end of the second leg, Fisher’s crew elected to continue on starboard for 200 metres before gybing. Meanwhile the two boats at the back, Team Holcim - PRB (SUI) and Guyot Environnement - Team Europe, executed an immediate gybe at mark two and launched into the lead past the three boats ahead of them.

Kevin Escoffier (FRA) and his Holcim crew shot off down the track to a healthy lead. But then on the upwind leg, all change again. A big left-hand windshift and a dropping breeze saw Escoffier stranded as the fleet behind hooked into the changing wind direction sooner than the race leader. For the second time, the pecking order turned inside out.

From lying in fourth place, Team Malizia took the lead for a few minutes, only to be displaced by 11th Hour Racing Team who had moved up from last back into first.

Neck and neck down the next leg, the German boat rolled over the top of the Americans and moved into a lead which Herrmann and the Malizia crew would hold until the finish.

“It’s great to come with the win today as we’ve had to work really hard to get to the start line of this race as we had to replace the foils last week,” said Malizia’s Will Harris. “It was a really tricky race. The wind was anywhere between 15 and two knots of wind. I think we really showed that we’re quite adaptable. We can really tune this boat nicely and we've worked hard to get it set up and to work well as a team.

“It got quite intense after the first lap where we managed to find an extra bit of wind and overtake the boats that were ahead. We realised that we need to sail a much higher mode and managed to kind of stay in the wind while the others got a bit stuck. So good work to Nico [Lunven] and Boris [Herrmann] on spotting the wind and spotting the right kind of tactical play.”

Taking himself off the boat today, out of an abundance of caution with a lingering positive COVID test, skipper Charlie Enright watched his 11th Hour Racing Team take second across the finish line, with Simon ‘SiFi’ Fisher taking up skipper duties for the day.

“The nicest thing we can take from today is we were leading the race and were also right at the back at times. But the emotions, the temperament, the attitude, the belief on board, it didn’t ever waver,” SiFi said.

WindWhisper celebrate their win in a tricky race that left the other VO65s becalmed and unable to beat the clock | Credit: Sailing Energy/The Ocean Race

“Obviously, I would rather have started today with Charlie onboard. He’s a really important part of this team and he’s worked so hard to make this project happen. I was wishing with all my heart this morning that he would be with us, but sadly it didn’t work out that way. But I’m very happy that we did a good job for him and we’ve left one more spot on the podium to aim for when he comes back.”

Biotherm finished third, and fourth went to Guyot Environnement - Team Europe (FRA/GER).

“That was a very good race for us because the boat hadn’t even got wet five days ago,” said Damien Seguin from Biotherm. “It was good to be on the start and it was a magic moment to be racing. We made a really good start and third place was good for us.”

As for Team Holcim - PRB (SUI), Escoffier’s crew were dealt a poor hand by the fickle wind and will feel unlucky to have lost the lead the way they did. The Swiss will console themselves that across the next six months of circumnavigating the planet, the luck should even out across this competitive fleet, but today the wind gods decided to smile upon Team Malizia.

Earlier in the afternoon, in barely a breath of wind, WindWhisper Racing Team ghosted across the finishing line in the VO65 race.

Such was the lead established by skipper Pablo Arrarte (ESP) and his predominantly Polish and Spanish crew, the other five boats failed to finish inside the 15-minute time limit which started ticking the moment WindWhisper had slipped across the finish line.

Out of the reaching start, with the wind off Alicante barely reaching four knots, four of the six boats started neck and neck on slightly different sail configurations. But it was the most leeward position of WindWhisper that edged the Polish boat into pole position as the bright red boat rounded mark one of the rectangular course with a slender but critical lead.

As Arrarte’s crew gradually drifted away to a big lead ahead of the chasing pack, battles ensued for the minor placings. However, while WindWhisper was able to maintain momentum, the faltering breeze vanished into thin air, leaving the other five teams stranded, unable to cross the finish line.

Arrarte paid tribute to his team and put their success down to good judgement at the start. “We’re very happy to win the In-Port Race,” said the Spanish skipper, a four-time veteran of the race. “It was very tricky, the wind didn’t help much, but ‘Ñeti’ [crew member Antonio Cuervas-Mons] made a great call at the start and put us in a good place, which made it a little bit easier [to win].”

So six points for the winner, and no points for the rest. A brutal way to start the campaign for five of the teams, but a chance for redemption when the 1,900 nautical mile Leg 1 of The Ocean Race VO65 Sprint Cup begins in a week’s time, the departure from Alicante to Cabo Verde.

Meanwhile, on what turned out to be a warm January weekend in Alicante, nearly 50,000 fans enjoyed the opening days of the race in Ocean Live Park.

Activities will continue throughout the week at Ocean Live Park, building towards the start of Leg 1 next Sunday 15 January.

In-Port Race Alicante: Results and Points

IMOCA:

1. Team Malizia, 5 points
2. 11th Hour Racing Team, 4 points
3. Biotherm, 3 points
4. Guyot environnement - Team Europe, 2 points
5. Holcim-PRB - did not finish, 0 points

VO65:

1. WindWhisper Racing Team, 6 points
2. Team Jajo, did not finish, 0 points
3. Mirpuri Foundation Racing Team, did not finish, 0 points
4. Viva Mexico, did not finish, 0 points
5. Ambersail 2, did not finish, 0 points
6. Austrian Ocean Racing - Team Genova, did not finish, 0 points

The opening salvos will be fired in The Ocean Race 2022-23 on Sunday (8 January) with the start of the In-Port Race Series in Alicante.

As previously noted on Afloat.ie, there will be separate races for the two different classes of boat in the competition, the VO65s and IMOCAs, both of which can be viewed live in Ireland on Eurosport and discovery+.

Although The Ocean Race has always been very much about the thrill and skill of crossing open oceans, the In-Port Race Series has long been a popular and an integral part of the race’s DNA.

The 2022–23 edition features in-port races at seven of the course’s stopover cities around the world where local fans can get up close and personal to the teams as they battle it out around a short inshore course.

Although in-port races do not count towards a team’s overall points score, they do play an important part in the overall rankings as the In-Port Race Series standings are used to break any points ties that occur during the race around the world.

Typically staged close enough to shore that fans in the stopover city can enjoy the action from dry land, in-port races are often fast and furious affairs that test the sailors’ boat handling capabilities to the max.

If the weather conditions allow, each team carries three guests on board during in-port races. Although for safety reasons they are not allowed to participate in racing the boats, these lucky people get as close to the heart of the action as it is possible to be, and one supremely fortunate individual could be selected by the skipper to take the helm for the final leg of the course.

Bangor sailor Bill O’Hara represented Ireland in the Finn class at Los Angeles 1984 and Seoul 1988 before his distinguished career as a race officer

Winning the start is often the key to victory at the finish. Principal race officer Bill O’Hara has opted for a reaching start, which means the boats will be starting with the wind blowing from side-on, approximately 90 degrees.

“The IMOCAs are not designed for close-quarters manoeuvring, so the reaching start makes sense,” says O’Hara, a former Olympic competitor for Ireland. “Also, it gives the IMOCAs the best chance of popping up on their foils, which we have never seen before in the history of the race.”

O’Hara is planning a rectangular course, aiming for at least two laps with a target finish time of 45 minutes for the IMOCA fleet who start at 1600 CET.

“If we get a moderate breeze strength of, say, 10 knots, then I reckon the first leg will be a 1.5 nautical mile reach, downwind for 0.5nm, a 2nm reach along the bottom, upwind for 0.5nm, then 0.5nm back to the start/finish line.”

For the VO65s who start earlier at 1400 CET, O’Hara is planning more of a square-shaped course to allow more tactical manoeuvres on the race course, opportunities for race-winning tacks and gybes with boats that are more easily handled in close-quarters situations.

As of Saturday 7 January, the weather forecast looks good for Sunday’s racing, according to O’Hara: “The weather models point to breeze somewhere over 10 knots, with the breeze building during the afternoon and possibly gusting near 15 knots. It’s looking like we could be in for some good wind!”

This should be enough to see the IMOCAs pick up speed on the reaching legs and get fully foiling, hitting speeds in excess of 20 knots.

With manoeuvres difficult to execute on an ocean-going IMOCA, winning the start is going to be more critical than ever in this fleet. Judging your time-on-distance approach on a reach to the start is going to be difficult, and no one has got their time-on-distance down better than an expert in match racing.

GUYOT environnement is packed with Olympic levels of talent. Aside from co-skipper Robert Stanjek being a former Star World Champion, Annie Lush represented Great Britain at the London 2012 Games in women’s match racing, and the winning skipper from those Olympics was none other than fellow GUYOT teammate Tamara Echegoyen from Spain.

The In-Port Race course plotted for Alicante on Sunday afternoon | Credit: The Ocean Race

While Susann Beucke might be new to offshore racing, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic silver medallist in the 49erFX skiff will provide useful close-quarters experience for the German sailor to bring to Kevin Escoffier’s crew aboard Team Holcim - PRB. 11th Hour Racing’s Francesca Clapcich also comes from a recent Olympic background, having twice represented Italy at the 2012 and 2016 Games, and will be on leeward lookout for the team during the In-Port Race, while skipper Charlie Enright keeps a weather eye on race and spectator traffic.

The small-boat experience on Paul Meilhat’s Biotherm comes from Damien Seguin, a double Paralympic Champion from France. Team Malizia skipper Boris Herrmann will be drawing on his former life as a 505 dinghy sailor to remind him of the close quarters manoeuvring that will be required during the pre-start of the In-Port Race.

Meanwhile, the VO65s will be champing at the bit to get off the start line in good shape. Expect some aggressive pre-start manoeuvring as they jockey for position.

Like the IMOCA crews, there is some world-class small-boat talent scattered throughout the VO65 fleet. Tokyo 2020 Laser Radial Olympian Magdalena Kwaśna is ready to do her bit for skipper Pablo Arrarte and Windwhisper Racing Team from Poland.

Former Laser Radial competitor Tania Elías Calles is a four-time Olympic representative from Mexico who joins skipper Erik Brockmann aboard Viva México. Brockmann himself is well used to close-quarters competition as a past J/70 keelboat world championship, as well as skippering Mexican teams in high-speed catamarans in the Extreme Sailing Series.

Ambersail 2 is skippered by Lithuanian Olympic representative from London 2012 Rokas Milevičius – who, when he raced aboard Team Brunel in 2014–15, became the first Lithuanian sailor to take part in The Ocean Race. Milevičius’ Olympic experience should stand him in good stead off the start line.

The Olympic experience runs deep through Antonio Fontes’ crew on Mirpuri Foundation Racing Team. Hugo Rocha has a 470 Olympic bronze medal, Diogo Cayolla is a three-time representative for Portugal, and Francisco Cruz has raced a windsurfer at the Games for Argentina.

Team JAJO from the Netherlands is full of youth and exuberance, although their not-so-secret weapon to bring some age and experience is Dutchman Bouwe Bekking, an eight-time veteran of The Ocean Race.

Gerwin Jansen’s team on Austrian Ocean Racing powered by Team Genova are young and the least experienced of all the crews. A clean start by Jansen, and letting the other teams make mistakes, would probably be a good strategy for their first In-Port Race as they look to build on their lack of racing miles.

Full crew lists (as of Saturday 7 January) for the IMOCA and VO65 fleets are attached below.