The Swiss-flagged IMOCA Team Holcim–PRB, skippered by Frenchman Kevin Escoffier, has extended its overall race lead by winning the second leg of The Ocean Race 2022-23 after leading the five-boat fleet into Cape Town on Sunday (12 February) at the end of a testing, challenging passage from Cabo Verde.

The leg win is the team’s second consecutive victory after also finishing in the top spot in the around-the-world race’s opening stage from Alicante, Spain to Mindelo in the Cabo Verde islands, and sees Escoffier’s team cement its lead in the overall standings.

The Swiss boat was first across the finish line off Cape Town’s waterfront at 3.10pm local time (1310 UTC) on Sunday afternoon after a tense four-way battle in the final few hours of the leg with second-placed Biotherm (FRA) led by France’s Paul Meilhat, USA skipper Charlie Enright’s third-placed 11th Hour Racing Team.

Remarkably, after two-and-a-half weeks of open ocean racing among boats built to differing designs, just three miles and 25 minutes separated the top three teams — with Biotherm finishing just 16 minutes behind the winners, and 11th Hour Racing Team a further nine minutes back.

Escoffier’s winning crew — Sam Goodchild (GBR), Tom Laperche (FRA), Susann Beucke (GER) and onboard reporter Georgia Schofield (NZL) — completed the 4,600-nautical-mile leg in 17 days, 19 hours, 0 minutes and 9 seconds.

Asked about how a fleet of non-one-design offshore racing boats could deliver such ultra-close racing, Goodchild said: “The weather played into it a little bit, and also the last 24 hours of the leg was a little bit ‘roll the dice and hope for the best’. For us it rolled in the right place — and we will take that — but you cannot deny that any of the top four boats could have won it.

“We happen to be the ones today, but I think any one of us would have merited [victory] no more or less than another.”

Escoffier — a two-time competitor in The Ocean Race and a member of the victorious Dongfeng Race Team (CHN) crew in the 2017-18 edition — said the Swiss-entry’s winning move had been somehow managing to get to leeward of their rivals on the final approach to Cape Town.

“Overnight, we had been losing and losing to Biotherm who were to leeward. [We knew] that the last one to have [leeward positioning] would win. We have been lucky — but, also, we had been working hard for it.”

Paul Meilhat, skipper of Biotherm, said he and his crew felt a little fortunate to have been able to get the better of the American 11th Hour Racing Team on the final day to secure second place.

Paul Meilhat and his Biotherm crew who finished third into Cape Town on Sunday | Credit: Sailing Energy/The Ocean Race

“It was quite tricky at the end and for a while we were ahead of Holcim-PRB and 11th Hour Racing Team. But it’s ocean racing and that means you don’t know until you cross the finish line,” he said.

Biotherm finished third behind the USA team on leg one but made much of the early running on this second stage. Meilhat said the atmosphere and attitude on the boat had been very good during the leg: a factor he said that bodes well for the rest of the race.

“On the first leg we were far away from the leaders, but on this one we were the leader for the first five days,” he said. “So it was totally different. We know that the boat and the crew have good potential and we can race [competitively] against the others. This is a long race and I think it is going to be this close all the way to the end.”

11th Hour Racing Team’s British navigator Simon Fisher — a veteran of five editions of The Ocean Race and part of the winning Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing crew in 2014-15 — said the leg had seen more transitions between weather systems than had been expected.

Fisher singled out the final day of light air racing as one of the trickiest to deal with: “It was a very unusual sort of holding pattern at the end of the leg, where we could see the finish but we couldn’t really get there [because] there was this big ridge [of high pressure] blocking us.

“We had to hedge on the way we wanted to go, but the answer wasn’t really clear, so we had to position ourselves so that we could make a move when we felt it was the right decision. Let’s just hope some of the other legs have a simpler finish.”

German entry Team Malizia arrived in Cape Town in fourth place at 1516 UTC. The crew — led by British sailor Will Harris standing in for injured skipper Boris Herrmann — had looked to be making a charge for the lead earlier during the day before their southerly positioning ultimately took them into a patch of super-light wind which dropped them out of contention for a podium place. But according to Rosalin Kuiper, the setback didn’t diminish the mood on board.

“For me and the team this leg was a big achievement with some highs and lows,” Kuiper said. “We initially had to catch up on the others big time. We were very far behind the fleet. But we see the potential of our boat. It will be very good in the southern ocean and I’m looking forward to the next leg.”

Meanwhile, fifth-placed GUYOT environnement – Team Europe continued a late comeback run to complete the fleet dockside in Cape Town just before sunset. The European flagged team had trailed by as much as 510 miles earlier in the leg, only to close the gap to just over 50 miles by the finish.

“We lost contact with the fleet as they had better conditions and sailed much faster,” skipper Robert Stanjek said. “By the end we had better breeze so we had the chance to come back. It was close, not ecnough, but it was a very beautiful leg.”

GUYOT environnement – Team Europe make their final approach to the V+A Waterfront as the sun sets over Cape Town on Sunday evening | Credit: Sailing Energy/The Ocean Race

Billed as a leg on which managing the numerous transitions between weather systems would be a key factor, the second stage of The Ocean Race 2022-23 from Cabo Verde to Cape Town got off to a slow start with light five-to-eight-knot northeasterly winds replacing the normal breezy trade wind conditions in the region.

That meant the crews in the five-boat IMOCA fleet had to first pick their way carefully away from the Cabo Verde archipelago, avoiding the gigantic wind shadows cast by the mountainous islands, before trying to connect with the re-establishing trade winds on the way to the equator.

Three days after the start, and with the potentially windless and unpredictable doldrums looming large, the crews each had to choose what they believed would be the optimum route across the equator and into the southern hemisphere trade winds. Traditionally, a more westerly crossing is favoured.

Ultimately it was the European crew on GUYOT environnement – Team Europe who were first across the equator shortly after 0200 UTC on 31 January, albeit with the rest of the fleet hot on their heels.

The crew’s choice, led on Leg 2 by German skipper Robert Stanjek, was on a more direct easterly route and it began to pay dividends as the fleet quickly transitioned to 12– 18-knot trade wind sailing as they charged their way south.

In the end, though, their eastern gamble did not pay off, as they ran out of wind after getting too close to the notorious St Helena High — a persistent weather system with light winds — and quickly dropped to the bottom of the rankings.

A little further west, Leg 1 winner Team Holcim-PRB had made the best progress south and now looked well positioned to capitalise further on stronger winds away from the high as the pack began to step their way south and east.

However, by the time the fleet gybed to the east and finally turned their bows towards Cape Town, the Team Holcim–PRB, Team Malizia, and 11th Hour Racing Team crews were consistently trading the lead back and forth between them as they closed down the miles towards the Leg 2 finish.

The foiling IMOCAs were, at times, setting a furious pace as they tore through the Roaring Forties each clocking up 24-hour runs of more than 500nm. But it was the American entry 11th Hour Racing Team who won the leg’s 24-Hour Distance Challenge by Ulysse Nardin with a run of 542.68 nm at a top speed of 22.6 knots on 8 February.

The final 48 hours of the leg saw Biotherm join the still-raging three-way battle for the lead after a high-pressure ridge south west of Cape Town slowed the leading trio to a crawl.

Lift-out for the IMOCA fleet for maintenance ahead of next week’s In-Port Race and the epic Leg 3 | Credit: Sailing Energy/The Ocean Race

At 0900 UTC on the final day, less than five nautical miles separated the top four teams as they crawled their way towards the South African coast in drifting conditions with fewer than 30nm left to race.

At this stage, Team Malizia’s more southerly positioning had enabled the German-flagged yacht to hold on to the breeze significantly longer and ease their way into a 2nm lead on the advantage line to Cape Town. But as the wind reached the rest of the fleet, their southerly position proved to be too slow an angle and they dropped off the fight for a podium position.

This left the Biotherm, 11th Hour Racing Team, and the Holcim-PRB crews to fight it out over the final miles to the finish, sailing within clear sight of each other in light and changeable downwind conditions.

Finally, around 1030 UTC the Team Holcim–PRB crew began to sail a faster lower angle than their rivals to secure the controlling leeward position they had been gunning for since early morning.

That positioning enabled them to sail tactically over the final 20 miles by keeping themselves between the finish line and Biotherm and 11th Hour Racing Team in second and third respectively, to earn their second leg win out of two so far in this edition of The Ocean Race around the world.

The five IMOCAs will now undergo a few days of maintenance work to be race ready for the In-Port Race on Friday 24 February, then for the Leg 3 start on Sunday 26 February. Leg 3 from Cape Town to Itajaí, Brazil, is a 12,750nm record distance in the history of the race and will award double points.

With two legs of The Ocean Race 2022-23 completed, the standings are as follows:

1. Team Holcim – PRB (SUI) — 10 points
2. 11th Hour Racing Team (USA) — 7 points
3. Biotherm (FRA) — 6 points
4. Team Malizia (GER) — 5 points
5. GUYOT environnement – Team Europe — 2 points

Skipper Kevin Escoffier and his Team Holcim-PRB have won Leg 2 of The Ocean Race from Cabo Verde to Cape Town after a tense battle through the final miles of the race.

At sunrise on Sunday morning (12 February), four IMOCA teams were in the fight for the leg win, with Biotherm, 11th Hour Racing Team and the Holcim-PRB crews racing in lockstep in light and changeable conditions.

Team Malizia was some 20 miles to the south, then spent the next three hours just about sailing around the leading trio.

But the light and fickle winds didn’t hold for them and in the end it was a three-boat race among the northern trio.

Team Holcim-PRB approaches Cape Town on Sunday 12 February to claim the Leg 2 victory | Credit: Sailing Energy/The Ocean Race

Just three hours before the finish, Escoffier and his team finally popped up at the head of the rankings, having been able to sail a slightly better angle at a similar speed towards Cape Town, creating the narrow separation necessary to eke out a winning position.

This is the second consecutive leg win for Escoffier and his team, who maintain a perfect record, and will extend their advantage on the race leaderboard.

Just 16 minutes later, Biotherm took second place — with 11th Hour Racing Team breathing down their necks and crossing the finish line nine minutes after that.

As of 1444 UTC, Team Malizia look secure in fourth place some five nautical miles from the V+A Watertfront, with GUYOT environnement Team Europe due in to Cape Town this evening in fifth place. Follow their arrival on the race tracker at theoceanrace.com.

Leg Two Rankings at 1445 UTC, 12 February

1. Team Holcim-PRB, winner at 13:10:09 UTC
2. Biotherm, finished at 13:26:54 UTC
3. 11th Hour Racing Team, finished at 13:55:40 UTC
4. Team Malizia, distance to finish, 75 miles
5. GUYOT environnement - Team Europe, distance to lead, 27.2 miles

With just over 200 nautical miles left to race (as of 1800 UTC on Saturday 11 February) the results of Leg 2 of The Ocean Race 2022-23 remain as uncertain as ever.

The second, third and fourth-placed IMOCA boats are within just four miles on the advantage line as they race in light, flukey, changeable conditions.

Meanwhile, the fifth-placed boat is currently the second fastest in the fleet, having made up over 400 miles in the past two days.

The reason for the close racing is a ridge of high pressure which is bringing sunshine and hot temperatures to Cape Town. What it isn’t bringing is wind.

“It looks like we’re sailing on a lake at the moment,” said Will Harris from Team Malizia early on Saturday. “You wouldn’t believe we’re 300 miles south of Cape Town at nearly 40 degrees south latitude. Flat water, 10 knots of wind…”

Malizia has since found a way out as the boat is not only the closest to the finish (216.3nm as of 1800 UTC) but also the fastest, at just under 20 knots.

The middle teams still have to push through this windless void to reach Cape Town and the slow speeds have seen them compress to within shouting distance of each other. All this after 4,500 nautical miles of racing.

“We’re racing into a wall of no wind,” is the way Sam Goodchild on Team Holcim-PRB explains the situation. “We’re all choosing where we go into it, and then you hope you can get through it more quickly than the others to get to Cape Town. It’s probably going to be quite a close finish.”

The crew on 11th Hour Racing Team would seem to agree — perhaps no surprise as they, Holcim-PRB and Biotherm are so close they appear as one on the tracker.

“When Si Fi [Simon Fisher] runs fleet projections, in other words simulates where each boat will go based on optimum courses for the weather they have wherever on the map they are, we all arrive at the finish together. So, while we’ve worked hard to get ourselves in a safer position and worked hard to stay in front of Holcim, there is still a lot of uncertainty in the next 24 hours,” writes Amory Ross.

“In Top Gun you would call this a dogfight, a finish like this, no?” said Kevin Escoffier, skipper of Team Holcim-PRB.

Call it what you want: there is an exciting, close finish on the horizon within the next 24 hours in Leg 2 of The Ocean Race. Cape Town, a host city in 12 of 14 editions of The Ocean Race, is primed and ready to receive the fleet…in whatever order they arrive.

The ETA for Cape Town is near noon UTC on Sunday 12 February. Irish viewers can catch live coverage on Eurosport and discovery+.

Leg Two Rankings at 1800 UTC, 11 February

1. Team Malizia, distance to finish, 215.4 miles
2. 11th Hour Racing Team, distance to lead, 13.7 miles
3. Team Holcim-PRB, distance to lead, 14 miles
4. Biotherm, distance to lead, 17.2 miles
5. GUYOT environnement - Team Europe, distance to lead, 69 miles

Find the latest fleet positions on the race tracker at theoceanrace.com.

For 4,700 nautical miles, the five IMOCA teams competing in Leg 2 of The Ocean Race 2022-23 have been duelling south from Cabo Verde towards a finish line just off the V+A Waterfront of Cape Town.

Overnight Wednesday night (8 February) the race shifted into a speed contest to the northeast as one by one the fleet gybed out of the depths of the Roaring 40s to point directly towards the Cape Peninsula.

Incredibly, since noon UTC on Friday (10 February), the leading trio — Team Malizia, Team Holcim-PRB and11th Hour Racing Team — are separated by only two-and-a-half nautical miles on the advantage line as they drag race towards Cape Town on day 16 of the leg.

However, there is one more ‘speed bump’ to navigate. A ridge of high pressure — with very light winds — sits between the teams and the finish line. The leading boats keep poking their bows into the lighter conditions and slowing down. Meanwhile, the last place boat in the fleet is bringing fresh winds with them as they relentlessly close the gap.

In fact, GUYOT environnement - Team Europe, who trailed by over 510 miles when they made their turn to point at Cape Town, now find themselves less than 240 miles behind — a number that is coming down with each hourly position report.

“I’ve just done the routing [the weather routing predictions] for all of the boats, and we all finish within 10 minutes!“” said Team Holcim PRB skipper Kevin Escoffier in what may, or may not, be an exaggeration.

“What kind of sport are we doing when we do nearly 20 days at sea, pushing for every metre and then at the end everything is decided by the weather forecast?

“But we know sailing is like that…“” he concluded with a grim laugh. The only strategy left, he said, is to try and go as fast as possible for as long as possible. “We’ll see.”

This is the harsh truth of the next 48 hours for crews that are physically and mentally at the limit. Every decision is fraught with meaning as they attack crossing a high pressure ridge that is as wide as 250 miles — a mini doldrums.

“The closer we get to the finish line, the less wind we are going to have,” said Biotherm skipper Paul Meilhat. His team is nearly 100 miles to the northwest of the leading trio and sailing in different conditions. Will this be enough leverage to squeeze past?

“We hope to reduce the distance to the leaders. Maybe we will use a different strategy. They’ve left open the possibility to go directly to the finishing line [as opposed to coming up from the south].”

And after the ridge, a sprint to Cape Town.

“Once we do punch through this atrocious weather feature, we’ll have perhaps a couple of hundred mile coastal race to the finish,” noted 11th Hour Racing Team skipper Charlie Enright. “And if you believe any of the computers that we use, everybody will finish within 10 feet of each other, despite the 16 days that we busted our… selves to get here! So that is it, that’s the end of Leg 2!”

The ETA for Cape Town is this Sunday 12 February.

Leg Two Rankings at 1700 UTC, 10 February

1. 11th Hour Racing Team, distance to finish, 473.1 miles
2. Team Malizia, distance to lead, 1 miles
3. Team Holcim-PRB, distance to lead, 2.6 miles
4. Biotherm, distance to lead, 25.5 miles
5. GUYOT environnement - Team Europe, distance to lead, 190.7 miles

Find the latest fleet positions on the race tracker at theoceanrace.com.

11th Hour Racing Team is leading the way in Leg 2 of The Ocean Race 2022-23 on Thursday evening (9 February) as the five IMOCA teams gybed away from the ice exclusion zone along 45-degrees south latitude overnight, turning to race towards the Cape Town finishing line.

There is now less than 800 nautical miles to run but a major obstacle remains — a ridge of high pressure with very light winds between the fleet and Cape Town.

The wind is forecast to build in from the west, with the trailing boats GUYOT environnement-Team Europe and Biotherm carrying the breeze up to the leaders.

There is a very real possibility of all five teams finding themselves together on final approach to Cape Town, despite being separated by nearly 350 nautical miles on the rankings at 2000 UTC today.

In fact, the leaders have slowed down over the course of the day, the trailing boats making better speeds and closing the gap.

Charlie Enright, skipper of 11th Hour Racing Team, described the situation: “[We are shooting] up towards Cape Town, which is a northeasterly trajectory and where we will encounter a ridge and the whole fleet will compress and we’ll have to be on our toes: it will be first in, first out.

“We could bob around for a while and anyone could pass anybody. Then we will end this leg with a gruelling 100-mile coastal race… We’ve got to stay fresh to the end.”

That won’t be easy. This has been a gruelling leg already and with the ETA slipping by two or three days, the teams are low on food. They’ll have been rationing supplies for some days already, adding to the physical and mental stress of the final days of Leg 2.

Salvation lies ahead in Cape Town, where a warm welcome awaits at the Ocean Live Park in the V+A Waterfront on Sunday 12 February.

Leg Two Rankings at 2000 UTC, 9 February

1. 11th Hour Racing Team, distance to finish, 785.1 miles
2. Team Holcim-PRB, distance to lead, 23.7 miles
3. Team Malizia, distance to lead, 49.3 miles
4. Biotherm, distance to lead, 111.9 miles
5. GUYOT environnement - Team Europe, distance to lead, 348 miles

Find the latest fleet positions on the race tracker at theoceanrace.com.

It’s been a productive and fast 24 hours for the IMOCA fleet in The Ocean Race 2022-23 as the teams are diving south towards an ice exclusion zone and into the Roaring 40s, named for the area south of 40-degrees latitude where low pressure systems circle the continent of Antarctica unimpeded by land masses.

Sailors in The Ocean Race have traditionally called this territory the beginning of the Southern Ocean and it’s where the legends of the race are born.

Today is no different. Conditions have been ripe for speed runs and the top three boats on the ranking have all posted 500-plus-nautical-mile stretches in a 24-hour period.

“It’s very wet, it’s very grey, but we are really, really fast,” said Susann Beucke on Team Holcim-PRB. “We are tying to match with the other boats… They’re pushing a lot so we have to push back.”

Skipper Charlie Enright’s 11th Hour Racing Team had the best mark according to Race Control — set overnight at 541.7 miles — which is edging into record breaking territory.

(The IMOCA Charal, skippered by 2011-12 winner of The Ocean Race, Franck Cammas, holds the uncertified fully crewed record for the class at 558 nautical miles; Alex Thomson’s Hugo Boss has a certified mark of 539.71 nautical miles; and The Ocean Race record is Simeon Tienpont’s AkzoNobel at 602 nautical miles.)

While speed records are on the table today, conditions are forecast to change dramatically ahead of the finish.

Skipper Will Harris and his Team Malizia grabbed the lead on the rankings as at 1100 UTC, but the truth is the top three boats are very close in terms of tactical position towards the finishing line.

And those behind aren’t out of it. The leading boats are forecast to begin pushing into a ridge of high pressure that has very light winds. The trailing teams, including GUYOT environnement - Team Europe, will bring stronger winds with them from the west, and there is a scenario where all five boats end up very close on final approach to Cape Town overnight Saturday and into Sunday.

But that’s all to come. For today (Wednesday 8 February), it’s still a matter of pushing hard, to the southeast, making miles in the strong conditions as long as they last. It’s fast, but it doesn’t make for an easy life on board.

“Moving from your bunk to the back of the cockpit, which is about five steps, can take about a minute,” explains Jack Bouttell on board 11th Hour Racing Team. “You have to plan each step with coordination as to which handhold you’re going to hang on to.

“And then there is the noise of the boat and how loud the hum is from the foil. The louder the hum, the faster you’re going and the bigger risk of a nosedive following that.

“There are times you hear the hum come on and you just hold something and don’t move and just wait for the inevitable. And then you can carry on with your day. But cooking, going to the bathroom, changing clothes, it’s all very difficult.”

The ETA for Cape Town is Sunday 12 February.

Leg Two Rankings at 1600 UTC, 8 February

1. Team Malizia, distance to finish, 1,156.6 miles
2. 11th Hour Racing Team, distance to lead, 17.2 miles
3. Team Holcim-PRB, distance to lead, 68.6 miles
4. Biotherm, distance to lead, 237.3 miles
5. GUYOT environnement - Team Europe, distance to lead, 507.8 miles

Find the latest fleet positions on the race tracker at theoceanrace.com.

It’s been a long, exhausting but also thrilling second leg of The Ocean Race 2022-23 and the pattern is not going to change in the final stages, with the five IMOCA crews bracing themselves for one last push to Cape Town.

But the routing is far from straightforward, with the boats having to sail a long way south into the Southern Ocean to get round the St Helena high before climbing northeast to the finish, where an area of light winds is likely to block their route to Table Bay.

Kevin Escoffier, the ebullient skipper of Team Holcim-PRB is currently trailing new leader Team Malizia by just four miles in second place with under 1,600 nautical miles to go. In an interview from on board, he acknowledged that the fleet could easily compress before the finish.

“The last part of this leg won’t be easy,” said Escoffier as his boat surfed before northwesterly winds at a position roughly equidistant between Buenos Aires and Cape Town. “We had a cold front during all last night and we are going for another one tonight. That front — the low pressure — will bring us up to the southern limit of the course at the ice limit, so we can’t go further south than that.

“Then, when we are along the ice limit, we will wait for a third low pressure that will bring us northeast to Cape Town. But, but, but, but…it is not finished because, before arriving in Cape Town, there will be a very light spot. It means that the day before we finish we could have all the fleet coming back together in order to have a great finish for you, but not for us! Because we don’t like that. But, for sure, it could be a tight finish in Cape Town, with all the boats together under Table Mountain.”

Christian Dumard, weather consultant to The Ocean Race, says the ridge before the finish could give the crew on GUYOT environnement - Team Europe a chance to catch up again.

The team, skippered on this leg by the German sailor Robert Stanjek, is nearly 400 miles off the lead in fifth position to the north and west of the other four boats, among them 11th Hour Racing Team’s Mãlama and Biotherm. “The wind will come back from the west first, so it will be good for GUYOT — they should be able to come pretty close to the first boats,” summarised Dumard.

Despite what Escoffier is saying, Dumard is not sure that it will be necessary to drop down as far south as the northern limit of the ice exclusion zone at 45S. “It is difficult to know what they will do because there are many different routings that all arrive in Cape Town more or less at the same time,” he explained. “Some of them go very close to the ice limit. It could be that one or two boats — thinking they are slower or something like that — could take a risk of going close to the limit. But it is difficult to know what they will do. I would not do it if I was on the boat, but maybe one boat will try it.”

Dumard says, in the meantime, the crews will continue to sail south and east on a northwesterly and westerly airflow, but wind conditions will gradually ease.

“The wind will decrease. They are not going to go to Cape Town at the current speed (15-20 knots) — they will slow down probably in two days from now. The front is going to become less and less active as it gets closer to South Africa, with less and less wind. So it will move east over the fleet and then they will have to wait for the next one to get to the finish, probably on the 12th.”

Rosalin Kuiper under a wave on the deck of Team Malizia | Credit: Antoine Auriol/Team Malizia

This fascinating leg is showing the latest generation IMOCAs pushed to new limits in foiling mode by crews working round the clock, and has seen two big developments in the past five days.

First the loss of position for GUYOT environnement - Team Europe after her spectacular gains on the eastern flank of the fleet after the doldrums, that put her in the lead on the tracker, and genuinely so for some time. The former Hugo Boss, whose crew includes Sébastien Simon as navigator and tactician, got trapped in patchy winds and paid a heavy price, made worse by the loss of their spinnaker.

But according to Dumard, it would be wrong to criticise them. “They stayed in the east. They could have probably accepted to lose some of their lead and go further west and they decided to stay in the east,” he said. “It is easy to say now, but if you go back four or five days, it wasn’t so clear that there would be much more wind in the west, so it is always easy to say afterwards.”

The other big development has been the big step forward by Team Malizia, skippered on Leg 2 by Will Harris. The German boat had been lagging far behind for the entire leg from Cape Verde, after losing out in light and medium conditions in the early stages, when Harris said they were struggling to find the right set-up to be competitive.

For several days Harris and fellow crew Yann Eliès, Rosalin Kuiper and navigator Nico Lunven, were stuck on the western edge of the fleet before finally it came good for them as the boat showed her paces in fresher conditions. Now that she is in the same part of the ocean as her main rivals, she has not struggled to match them.

Back on Team Holcim-PRB, Escoffier says he has been enjoying every moment of this brand new race on the IMOCA calendar, (ven if he knows it well from his days on board Dongfeng Race Team.

“I think it is very important to enjoy what we do,” he said. “We love ocean racing and we’ve got a nice fleet, we’ve got a nice crew and so there is no reason not to enjoy it. I definitely enjoy fully-crewed racing — it is less stressful than single-handed. It’s also definitely a great crew on the performance side, but also on the human side. So yes, I am very happy about where we are and very happy about how we came here and I hope it will continue like that.”

The Holcim-PRB skipper said he and his fellow sailors on board — Sam Goodchild, Tom Laperche, Susann Beucke and onboard reporter Georgia Schofield — are ready for their first taste of the Southern Ocean: “We don’t have the heaviest wet weather gear, but we’ve got the sleeping bags, we’ve got gloves, we’ve got hats, so it should be OK and we have plenty to eat, even though the leg is longer than expected.”

He added: “So everything is OK on board. It will be a bit colder than expected, but I think it will definitely be a great practice before Leg 3 and the huge southern leg of the race.”

The ETA for Cape Town remains this Sunday 12 February.

Leg Two Rankings at 1700 UTC, 7 February

1. Team Malizia, distance to finish, 1,574.4 miles
2. 11th Hour Racing Team, distance to lead, 0.7 miles
3. Team Holcim-PRB, distance to lead, 2.7 miles
4. Biotherm, distance to lead, 142 miles
5. GUYOT environnement - Team Europe, distance to lead, 395.3 miles

Find the latest fleet positions on the race tracker at theoceanrace.com.

It was near midnight UTC on Saturday night (4 February) when boats in The Ocean Race fleet started to make their first significant move to the east towards Cape Town.

Within an hour, all five IMOCA teams had gybed to the east and pointed their bows towards Africa.

It’s a very close race now with 11th Hour Racing, Team Holcim-PRB, Biotherm and Team Malizia within 25 miles of the lead and spread across about 35 miles from north to south.

More gybes to the south are expected over the coming hours and days as the teams zig zag south and east to navigate around a high pressure system with light winds.

“We’re sailing into a high. There’s more rotation in the centre of the high but a bit less pressure,” said 11th Hour Racing Team skipper Charlie Enright as he laid out the options relative to his closest competition, Holcim-PRB and Biotherm. “We want the best of both worlds.“”

The outlier is GUYOT environnement - Team Europe who made their move over 160 miles to the north, once again looking to cut the corner on their rivals.

Onboard with Team Holcim-PRB Team, as Kevin Escoffier throws a scientific floater buoy into the South Atlantic | Credit: Georgia Schofield/polaRYSE/Holcim-PRB

The teams have also been deploying drifter buoys that will gather and transmit data to help the scientific community studying climate impacts on the ocean and aiding with weather forecasting. This is an area of the Atlantic Ocean that isn’t well-serviced by commercial shipping, so this is a meaningful contribution from the race teams.

The ETA for Cape Town is now 12 February.

Leg Two Rankings at 1400 UTC, 5 February

1. 11th Hour Racing Team, distance to finish, 2,334.6 miles
2. Team Holcim-PRB, distance to lead, 21.4 miles
3. Team Malizia, distance to lead, 30 miles
4. Biotherm, distance to lead, 36.4 miles
5. GUYOT environnement - Team Europe, distance to lead, 116.3 miles

Find the latest fleet positions on the race tracker at theoceanrace.com.

“Around the outside” is a trope that gets pulled out at one point or another on every edition of The Ocean Race. It refers to a tactical option on the race course where a boat, or boats, sail a longer route in more favourable conditions to make a pass on the leaderboard.

Today (Saturday 4 February) it’s appropriate as Team Holcim-PRB, 11th Hour Racing Team, Biotherm and even Team Malizia have used the longer, westerly option to slide south of GUYOT environnement - Team Europe who has been leading for much of Leg 2.

Up until now, what would traditionally be considered a risky easterly option had paid off for Robert Stanjek and his team on GUYOT environnement.

But between 2100 UTC last night and 0900 UTC this morning, their luck appears to have run out and the tactical scenario has turned on its head.

While all boats in the IMOCA fleet slowed and suffered some tricky shifts to navigate, it was much worse for the European-flagged team, who are no longer the most southerly boat and look to be in a very vulnerable position.

The tracker still shows GUYOT environnement - Team Europe with a nominal lead, but this is based solely on the maths of being to the east and therefore the closest boat to Cape Town. The tactical reality is very different.

The tracker also shows compression in the entire fleet with Team Malizia making strong gains behind Holcim-PRB and 11th Hour Racing Team, all three of which have gybed southwest. Earlier they were within sight of Biotherm — who are maintaining their southeasterly source for now — with only a 10-mile spread between them.

“The wind is a bit shifty with some squalls to play with. Lots of wind variations so we need to change sails, adjust trimming, gybe, etc,” was the report on Saturday morning from Nico Lunven on Team Malizia.

11th Hour Racing Team’s Malama sailing downwind at sunset in the South Atlantic on Thursday 2 February | Credit: Amory Ross/11th Hour Racing/The Ocean Race

“We are quite happy as we have been able to catch up a bit our competitors. Now we are only 30-40 nautical miles behind Holcim, Biotherm and 11th Hour. And GUYOT is in a different option, much closer to the rhumb line [direct route to Cape Town] but in light wind for now.

“Ahead of us, there is still a lot to play for. The next goal is to catch some strong NW wind in order to be able to gain to the East, towards Cape Town.

“Life is good on board. We had some showers under the rain squalls yesterday. We will need to monitor our remaining food as the leg is longer than expected…”

The ETA for Cape Town is now Saturday 11 to Sunday 12 February.

Leg Two Rankings at 1500 UTC, 4 February

1. GUYOT environnement - Team Europe, distance to finish, 2585.7 miles
2. Biotherm, distance to lead, 22.8 miles
3. 11th Hour Racing Team, distance to lead, 54.8 miles
4. Team Holcim-PRB, distance to lead, 64.4 miles
5. Team Malizia, distance to lead, 66.5 miles

Find the latest fleet positions on the race tracker at theoceanrace.com.

Credit to GUYOT environnement - Team Europe who have regained the lead on the race tracker as well as their position as the most southerly boat in the IMOCA fleet on Leg 2 of The Ocean Race 2022-23. In a race south, that’s a good thing… or is it?

Two of the three boats positioned about 120 miles to the west — Team Holcim-PRB and 11th Hour Racing — had put in a gybe to the west as of 1200 UTC on Friday (3 February), consolidating position and setting up for a weather transition ahead of the eventual left turn to Cape Town. It’s no surprise to see that Biotherm matched them and then some over the course of Friday afternoon, and they’re now (as of 1900 UTC) in second place on the tracker.

Tradition would say this is the right move. But that same tradition would have had GUYOT environnement stuck in the doldrums, and to this point the team keeps making miles towards the target. Can their luck hold?

“Whether the separation from the field will do us any good remains to be seen. The pronounced ridge of high pressure is forcing us all deep south, maybe even south-west. That doesn’t make us happy,” skipper Robert Stanjek said.

Navigator Sébastien Simon is looking for a way out of the trap: “The finish line is very far for us. So we have to stay focussed for the next part of the race. After the high pressure we have to manage all the subtropical low pressure. The game is not finished. We have to just sail our boat, sail our strategy.”

The ‘sail your boat’ theme comes up again and again. The IMOCA fleet is not one-design; the boats have different characteristics and sweet spots. Copying an opponent’s moves is a road to ruin.

This is how media man Amory Ross, on 11th Hour Racing Team, described the situation coming out of the doldrums: “Over the next [days] everyone to our east will probably want to come down to our line. Too far east going into the high and it gets really light. It’s always tempting to cut the corner so to speak, but it rarely works. So while the competition may be numerically closer to Cape Town and may be in better wind for the time being, if we can hang on out here to the west, our lane will come good eventually.

“We have, in essence, already done the hard work to get here and now we have to hope they either get stuck too close to the high…or spend their gains to join us. That’s when we get our turn. For now though the watch brief from [navigator] Si Fi is simple. Stick to the plan… Don’t be distracted by the short term successes of those to the east.”

That will come as comfort to the sailors furthest to the west, Team Malizia. Led by Will Harris, the team remains in the hunt, chasing down the leaders, while cautiously maintaining watch on their new foils.

With the ETA in Cape Town slipping by up to 48 hours, both food and power supplies become a focus, with the teams already looking at light rationing to conserve what is on board.

“We have been working on the solar panels — we have added 50% more area so that they are not in the shadow of the boom — so we can charge all day with solar,” said Team Holcim-PRB skipper Kevin Escoffier. “We also have the hydro generator that works off the speed of the boat and today we have been able to do 24 hours off these sources of power.”

ETA in Cape Town is now next Saturday 11 February.

Leg Two Rankings at 1900 UTC, 3 February

1. GUYOT environnement - Team Europe, distance to finish, 2,634.9 miles
2. Biotherm, distance to lead, 134.3 miles
3. 11th Hour Racing Team, distance to lead, 146.6 miles
4. Team Holcim-PRB, distance to lead, 149.9 miles
5. Team Malizia, distance to lead, 207.4 miles

Find the latest fleet positions on the race tracker at theoceanrace.com.