Oakley Marsh had earned his place on Team Malizia, one of the world’s premier offshore racing teams. He had crossed Europe to get there, and he was useful, skilled, trusted. Every time a race started, he was also the one standing on the dock.
“Pushing the boat off every time didn’t really sit right with me as a sailor,” he says. “So I thought, how can I get there? How can I be on board?”
This Sunday he gets his answer. Marsh lines up in Brittany for the Défi Paprec alongside German co-skipper Jens Meier aboard a rented Figaro BENETEAU 3 called Chipmunk. The forecast is unsettled, thirty-five knots or so on the nose, and the course runs four days north to Wolf Rock off the tip of England before turning south to Vigo in Spain. He is not watching this one leave.
Getting here has taken most of his adult life. Marsh grew up in Wellington, beginning his racing career with the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club Youth Scheme before moving to Auckland to chase a professional sailing life. He completed his sailmaking apprenticeship at Doyle Sails and worked through the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron Mastercard Youth Training Programme, graduating in 2021. Then COVID hit, stalling the New Zealand sailing scene, and he moved to Europe.
Team Malizia was the foot in the door. Joining as a technician during the build of Malizia 3, the boat the team would campaign through the Ocean Race and the Vendée Globe, Marsh found himself close to the sport’s elite but not yet in it. From there came sailmaking for the French America’s Cup team in Barcelona, then the Admiral’s Cup campaign in the UK with Team Jolt. He crossed Europe making connections, following the work and the racing, and all the while, from the dockside, he was watching how the offshore world actually worked.
What he saw was a pattern. The bulk of Ocean Race rosters are made up of sailors who came through the Figaro racing circuit, a one-design fleet built around the Figaro BENETEAU 3, a 32-foot production foiling monohull. La Solitaire du Figaro Paprec, the flagship event, is three solo legs and is widely regarded as the most competitive shorthanded offshore training ground in the world. Around 80 percent of Ocean Race sailors have passed through it. For Marsh, the path forward became clear.
The Défi Paprec is his entry point, a double-handed appetiser to La Solitaire itself. He and Meier are racing a Figaro rented from Marcus Hutchinson, an Irishman and the class vice president, who has made something of a project of helping international sailors find their feet in a circuit that remains, for now, almost entirely French. Security briefings are delivered by the French military coast guard. In French.
La Solitaire is the next milestone, and beyond that, Marsh has his eye on the Tour de France à la Voile. It is a prestigious Figaro circuit race that last had a New Zealand entry more than 25 years ago. In 1999, Russell Coutts skippered Sun Microsystems Team New Zealand in the event, winning the opening two legs in Scheveningen before falling back in the overall standings. In 2001, Hamish Pepper won individual inshore stages but the team finished 5th overall.
“I’m trying to change that,” Marsh says of the 25-year absence. The budget isn’t there this season. He is building toward it.
Behind all of it sits the reason a boy stood on the Wellington waterfront at age 10 and watched Mike Sanderson sail the Volvo Ocean Race into the harbour. Marsh has been in contact with New Zealand sailor Conrad Colman, who is assembling a Transatlantic campaign, and there may be a berth. He is not banking on it. The Ocean Race is in an uncertain phase, with fewer confirmed teams for the next edition than the sport would like, but his goal has not moved in nearly 20 years.
What he needs to get there is partners. Not sponsors; he is careful about the distinction. He wants New Zealand companies with international ambitions, prepared to attach their name to a Figaro campaign running through French waters. Real Meals, a freeze-dried food company out of Nelson, has already come on board, using the partnership to push into the maritime and outdoor sports market. He is looking for more.
The Défi Paprec starts Sunday. If the funding comes together, La Solitaire follows the year after. And somewhere further down the track, the Ocean Race, potentially with an Auckland stopover and a New Zealand boat in the fleet.
This time, he will not be on the dock; he is the co-skipper!
