NEWS AND VIEWS FROM THE WORLD OF YACHTING
Kevin Escoffier’s Holcim-PRB, the dominant leader of The Ocean Race, has set a new 24- hour IMOCA record by covering a breathtaking 595.26 nautical miles over 11-12 March, 2023. The crew of Holcim-PRB maintained an average pace of 24.8 knots racing at near 50°S on the race’s long Southern Ocean stage.
The previous official IMOCA record was set by Alex Thomson on Hugo Boss back in 2018 (solo) at 539.71 miles, while the crew of Charal had smashed out a 558-mile run on the delivery back from the Route du Rhum last December (which couldn’t be ratified).
Escoffier’s Holcim-PRB team was also first through the Tasmanian scoring gate on the Southern Ocean leg. They collect a full five points for passing longitude 143°E, maintaining a perfect scoreline since the start of The Ocean Race in January.
“The rhythm of these last hours of racing has been set by a big push to the scoring gate and this first set of points for leg 3,” Escoffier explained shortly after. “We built a big lead early this leg, but the others caught a favourable weather front and there was nearly a re-start a few days ago. But we managed to hold on to a bit of a lead, which we really wanted to keep for the scoring gate.”
However, despite Holcim-PRB building a 600-mile advantage at one stage on the 12,000- mile leg from Cape Town to Itajai, a series of high pressure ridges saw the fleet compress dramatically – at one point just five miles separated the four boats after around 6,000 miles of racing.
Having overcome earlier mast damage, Boris Herrmann’s Team Malizia was able to
