Light winds yesterday afternoon to the south of the Italian island of Sicily has re-shuffled the leading pack in The Ocean Race Europe 2025 and given Swiss entry Team Holcim – PRB the opportunity to stage a spectacular comeback from a distant fifth place yesterday to challenging for the lead today.
The top four teams had been making fast progress along Sicily’s southern coastline with the state-of-the-art foiling IMOCA yachts eating up the miles in strong winds at speeds over 20 knots, before slowing to around five knots as they reached a patch of light winds around midday on Thursday.
The fast reaching conditions in bumpy seas make life uncomfortable for the sailors on board the carbon-hulled boats.
“In these conditions life on board is hard,” explained Francesca Clapcich onboard Boris Herrmann’s Team Malizia (GER). “We can’t really move around so much, even basic things like peeing on the bucket is super hard.
“You always need to be careful in these conditions – always one hand for the boat and the other for whatever it is you are doing. They are definitely not the most comfortable boats in the world. They are quick, but not comfortable.”
The top group ground almost to a halt as they entered a transition zone leading to new wind from the north on the eastern side of Sicily, Behind them their Swiss rivals – who had been making steady gains over the previous 24 hours – were taking full advantage of still being in the stronger breezes as they tore eastward, closing in on the leaders hour by hour.
“We have made very good gains on our competitors,” said skipper Rosalin Kuiper (SUI) on Thursday morning. “We are within 45 miles now – so we made up 100 miles in the past 24 hours. That’s successful, I would say.
“It’s very pretty, we have a beautiful view of the cliffs [of Sicily] and it’s amazing to be here. Really nice to wake up like this: very different to last night when again we had a big light show with a lot of thunder and lightning around – and now everything is like a fairy tail again. Champagne sailing.”
And by 1700 Thursday afternoon the Swiss boat had joined the line-abreast formation at the front of the fleet – a remarkable turnaround from a distant fifth in just 24-hours.
“We were having a race with four boats and now it is a race with five boats because Holcim joined the game,” commented Paul Meilhat, skipper of the overall race leader Biotherm (FRA).
“We are under Sicily and the wind is coming from the north. Sicily has lots of very high mountains – one more than 3,000 metres – so now we are just glued in no wind. But tonight we are going to catch the wind from the other side, from the northeast, and there will probably be strong winds again – like 20 or 25 knots – for a few hours. But then tomorrow morning it is back to light wind.”
As night fell the pack switched to upwind mode as the crews tacked their way north towards the south east tip of the island in search of the new breeze, which they finally felt in their sails around three AM.
With the next waypoint ahead, Team Holcim – PRB made the decision to continue east rather than stay with the other four boats who had tacked to the north hoping for better winds.
“We are the most southern boat in the fleet at the moment. The other boats all tacked further north. We ran out of breeze just now and did a sail change, but let’s see how the guys and girls do in the north. We have decided to go straight to the waypoint and I hope it turns out the way we want it to.”
Just after sunrise it looked as if Kuiper’s wish might have come true, with the Swiss crew showing on the race tracker as having edged ahead by one nautical mile as the group sailed in upwind mode in around 13 knots of breeze.
By 1400 today there was just five miles separating the top five boats, with Ambrogio Beccaria’s Allagrande Mapei narrowly leading from Team Holcim – PRB in second, Biotherm in third, Team Malizia in fourth, and the long-time Leg-5 leader Yoann Richomme’s Paprec Arkéa (FRA) in fifth.
With a little over 500-nautical miles to go on this final stage of The Ocean Race Europe 2025 before the fleet arrive in Boka Bay, Montenegro, the top five look set to battle it out tooth and nail the entire way. After five days of intense racing the crews’ energy levels are depleted and the sailors will have to manage their bodies as well as their boats if they hope to secure a podium position.
Biotherm skipper Meilhat aptly summed up the likely mood aboard all the boats today.
“We will try to fight to the finish line,” he said. “The important thing is not to separate too much from the fleet and to stay close with the other boats. It’s nearly three days to go to Montenegro so we need to keep some energy.”
