The second leg of The Ocean Race, racing down the Atlantic from Cabo Verde to Cape Town, turned into a tense final 24-hour showdown with the fleet effectively restarting 100 miles out off South Africa. Kevin Escoffier’s Holcim-PRB team came out on top, scoring back-to-back wins in the multi-stage around the world so far.
Having left Alicante in January, the fleet made a short ‘pitstop’ at the Cape Verde islands, before the five IMOCAs raced south in late January/mid-February, unlike the usual November/December timescale for the Atlantic stage of an around the world race.
Things got off to a gentle start, with all teams having to work hard to extricate themselves from the considerable wind shadows created by the mid-Atlantic archipelago, before aiming to hook into the tradewinds they were hoping would re-establish near the Equator. But the doldrums proved particularly impenetrable in late January and progress for the foiling IMOCAs was painful: at one point Biotherm averaged just 2.3 knots over a 24 hour period.
Though the fleet entered the light winds of the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone almost abreast, there was a 200-mile spread between Team Malizia to the west and Guyot Environnement-Team Europe in the east. Unusually, it was the most easterly boat of Guyot Environnement that was set free first, crossing the Equator on 31 January.
As the fleet finally picked up more consistent tradewinds Malizia and Holcim-PRB began to make the biggest gains. Malizia, with her full bow shape and angular aft sections, is particularly optimised for bigger wind and wave conditions. Both Malizia and Holcim-PRB had also opted not to take a lightwind spinnaker on this leg, instead saving one of their limited sail numbers for a later stage in the race.
The South Atlantic did deliver its traditional high speed runway, with boat speeds of 36+ knots recorded and 11th Hour Racing Team setting the Leg 2 24-hour benchmark with a run of 542.68miles (the IMOCA record currently stands at 558 miles, set by Charal 2, on a delivery back to Lorient from last year’s Route du Rhum). A final high pressure ridge on the approach to Cape Town, however, saw the fleet compress until less than five miles separated the top four teams. While Malizia’s more southerly position had enabled them to hold on to the breeze for longer, building a two-mile advantage, the chasing boats came in on a hotter angle with more speed to overtake. Holcim-PRB manoeuvred themselves into a controlling position, sailing tactically over the final 20 miles by placing themselves between the finish line and Biotherm and 11th Hour Racing Team in 2nd and 3rd place respectively, to earn their second leg win out of two so far. After 18 days of racing, just 25 minutes separated the top three boats.
