At the end of June, the curtain came down on the 2023 edition of The Ocean Race with victory for 11th Hour Racing Team after an intense round-the-world crewed race with stopovers, marked by the unprecedented participation of five IMOCA boats. A success for the class, which opens up bright prospects for the future.
Text: Servane Dorléans
The suspense lasted right up to the end of The Ocean Race, won in front of the jury by 11th Hour Racing Team, which was deprived of the final leg following a collision with Guyot Environnement – Team Europe on a starboard refusal shortly after the start in The Hague. With three stage wins out of seven, the American crew won ahead of Holcim – PRB and Team Malizia. Justine Mettraux, who took part in stages 2, 3 and 5, also contributed to this success. “There’s no equivalent to The Ocean Race in terms of experience. It was really rewarding to be able to sail the southern seas in an IMOCA. It enabled me to improve my knowledge of the boat and the course. I’d never rounded Cape Horn before,” she comments.
“Everyone who took part in this wonderful adventure had an exceptional time. From a sporting point of view, we saw an interesting progression throughout the race. From a technical point of view, some equipment was subject to fatigue, something we hadn’t necessarily seen on our boats up to that point. It was a very intense race, which really challenged us at every level,” says Antoine Mermod, President of the IMOCA class. In his opinion, this race has a rightful place in the class calendar. “A winning Vendée Globe campaign costs 10-15 million euros over four years. It’s a bit daring to bet everything on one race, a very significant sporting, technological and financial effort. The Ocean Race, which offers a wider range of opportunities to skippers and sponsors, is complementary. Today, we have 45 active projects, with a potential of 15 boats for the next edition of The Ocean Race.”
100% boats
Charlie Dalin won’t disagree. The skipper of MACIF was a freelancer on the 5th leg between Newport and Aarhus on 11th Hour Racing: “We saw some pretty incredible things, with a 24-hour record broken several times on this race, which is a dream of mine. It was interesting to discover it from the inside, to see what goes on behind the scenes, the daily challenge for the shore teams. To win, you need excellent sailors, a good boat and an extremely competent technical team. The boat is driven hard all the time. It’s great to do a transatlantic race at such a high pace, and ashore it’s a real race against the clock.” According to Charlie, who hopes one day to line up at the start of the race and to see a bigger line-up in the future, the ideal is to have “a race-specific IMOCA, more crew-oriented”. To be continued, bearing in mind that The Ocean Race Europe 2025 and The Ocean Race will be open exclusively to IMOCA boats.