The Ocean Race is the toughest test of a team in sport – and sailing’s greatest round-the-world challenge. Since 1973, winning the Race has been an obsession for the world’s best sailors – Olympic champions, record breakers and pioneers. With teams racing through the most extreme spots on the planet – closer to the astronauts in the Space Station than anyone else on land – and calling at iconic cities on 6 continents, The Ocean Race is a truly global sporting competition with adventure and sustainability at its heart, and sailors testing the limits of human ambition and performance.
Conrad Colman will depart New York on 1 September at the helm of MSIG Europe, steering what might be the most deliberately constructed crew in IMOCA racing this year. Joining the two-time Vendée Globe veteran are three young New Zealand sailors: Megan Thomson, Anna Merchant, and Aaron Hume-Merry. Together, they form the backbone of Aotearoa Ocean Racing, Colman’s ambitious project to rebuild New Zealand’s presence in professional offshore racing.
The Ocean Race Atlantic marks a watershed moment for local sailing. It’s the first crewed IMOCA transatlantic race linking New York to Lorient, and it comes with an unfamiliar constraint for the class: each team must field two women and two men. For Colman’s crew, this requirement aligns with something far larger than compliance. It’s a statement about succession.
Thomson arrived at this opportunity as New Zealand Sailor of the Year 2025, having already made her mark in match racing circles as the first female helm to podium at the Open Match Racing World Championship. Merchant brings a mixed portfolio of competition experience, from match racing to foiling and offshore work. Hume-Merry, a national champion with over a decade in Olympic classes and offshore campaigns, rounds out the trio. None of them have raced IMOCAs before. That’s the point.
“I’m really excited to sail with these motivated Kiwis and pass on some of my offshore experience,” Colman said. “I know it’ll be tough racing against a fleet made up entirely of the latest generation foiling boats, but we’ll give everything we have while keeping that competitive spirit we share on board.”
MSIG Europe will be the sole daggerboard IMOCA in a six-boat fleet of modern foilers, a handicap that could prove educational in unexpected ways. The boat is older, less aerodynamic, more honest about her limitations. Training sessions have already revealed what matters most: the crew’s cohesion and the younger sailors’ hunger to learn. Thomson described the opportunity as “bold vision for New Zealand sailing” that motivated her to step into offshore racing for the first time.
Colman met Merchant and Hume-Merry during a New Zealand visit last February through the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, a partner in the Aotearoa Ocean Racing initiative. Both impressed him immediately, and Thomson joined shortly after. It’s a pragmatic assembly of talent, but also something rarer in elite sailing: a genuine apprenticeship. These aren’t ringers brought in to make up numbers. They’re the next wave.
Georgia Schofield will document the passage as an official On Board Reporter, continuing her role with Colman since 2023. The transatlantic crossing, scheduled to finish between 8 and 10 September, will be her platform to show a global audience what New Zealand offshore racing looks like when it’s being rebuilt from the ground up.
For Colman, this race represents one chapter in a longer book. The Vendée Globe remains the obsession, the ultimate test. But stepping down from solo racing to mentor younger sailors, and specifically to mentor Kiwis, shifts something about how he competes. MSIG Europe won’t be favoured against newer foiling boats, but that’s precisely why this matters. Learning happens in adversity, and these three will face plenty of it over nine days crossing the Atlantic.
