Your briefing for the day – all the key details and update in one brief report:
The numbers
- Malizia now leads by 30.4nm over United by the Ocean, the largest margin of the race so far, having lost and then retaken the lead since day one
- MSIG Europe sits 175.1nm off the lead, the biggest single-boat gap of the race, after a repair forced the boat four hours off its line
- Malizia won the day’s Super Sprint outright, 12.02nm covered in the 20-minute window, its second Super Sprint win in three days
MSIG Europe’s breakdown
In 28 to 30 knots of wind, the furling line on MSIG Europe‘s J2 headsail snapped near the end of a furl, sending the sail back out fully deployed and uncontrollable. Skipper Conrad Colman and crewmate Elie Pirnay spent two and a half hours on the bow in the dark rerouting the line back into the drum by hand. “That was not a fun way to spend the day, that’s for sure,” Colman said.
Not the only gear trouble
DMG Mori lost an inspection hatch off its aft ballast tank under the slamming of the boat, and is now sailing the rest of the leg without a working hatch on that tank after robbing one from elsewhere to keep using ballast at all.
Super Sprint standings
Malizia leads on cumulative points with two wins from three days, DMG Mori second, Francesca Clapcich’s 11th Hour Racing close behind in third.
Weather
The fleet remains hard on the wind in a strong southeast breeze, with squally conditions expected for at least another 24 hours. Race organisers believe the next one to three days could produce speeds fast enough to challenge the current 24-hour distance record of 641.13 nautical miles, set by Malizia’s predecessor boat during an Atlantic crossing in the 2022-23 edition of the round-the-world Ocean Race.
