The Ocean Race veteran Pablo Arrarte has led WindWhisper Racing Team to victory in the first stage of the inaugural The Ocean Race VO65 Sprint on Saturday afternoon (21 January).
The Polish-flagged team battled hard on the opening 48 hours of the race to escape the brutal conditions of the Mediterranean with a lead and was able to extend and protect from there in the fast, downwind conditions of the Atlantic.
WindWhisper crossed the finishing line at 14:11:14 UTC with an elapsed time of 6d 01h 11min 14s.
“It was a challenge to get out of the Mediterranean in one piece without breaking the boat because we had a lot wind — we saw more than 50 knots — so it was intense and hard,” Arrarte said.
“We knew coming out of Gibraltar leading it would be easier to stay in front than to get in front later, so with [navigator] Axel Magdahl we made a good plan and we executed it and by leading coming out the rest of the race was good.
“It’s been an amazing race. We knew we were just doing this one leg right now so that allowed us to push hard. I’m glad we had this group, with some good experience as well as the young guys, and it was awesome to be out there again competing with the other teams. We’ve really enjoyed it.”
Overnight, the first IMOCAs arrived with Team Holcim-PRB taking the win with a near three-hour lead, as previously reported on Afloat.ie.
VO65 Rankings at 17:30 UTC, 21 January
- WindWhisper Racing, finished, 5d 16h 35min 21s
- Team JAJO, 18.7 distance to finish
- Mirpuri Foundation Race Team, 59.4 miles to leader
- Austrian Ocean Race - Team Genova, 159.3 miles to leader
- Ambersail 2, 224.6 miles to leader
- Viva Mexico, 850.5 miles to leader
Follow the remaining boats’ progress to Cabo Verde with regular updates via the race tracker at theoceanrace.com.
