Conrad Colman, the Kiwi skipper known as The Crazy Kiwi, is preparing to sail his IMOCA MSIG Europe across the Atlantic later this week, the first leg of a journey that will end with an all-New Zealand crew on the start line of the inaugural Ocean Race Atlantic in September. We caught up with Colman last night, NZ time, just before the team lifted MSIG Europe back into the water.
The boat came out of the water for a short haulout recently, mainly to replace the gland on the prop shaft, along with a general check-over after roughly a thousand miles of sailing since a winter and spring refit. With everything found aligned and undamaged, Colman is confident the boat is ready for the delivery trip to the United States, currently planned to depart France this coming Friday.
The route to the Ocean Race Atlantic start line will run south along the coast of Portugal, past Madeira, and around the Azores anticyclone from the south, avoiding unsettled weather further north in the Atlantic. Colman is not putting a number on how long the crossing will take, saying only that leaving on schedule gives the team enough margin to arrive safely in Newport with time in hand.
It will also be the first time the full crew sails together.
"It's a shakedown for boat and crew," Colman said, "and there will be times during that trip that we will be sailing as if it's the [Ocean Race Atlantic] race so that we can taste the high intensity required."
The crew is entirely Kiwi. Alongside Colman are well-known sailors Megan Thomson, Anna Merchant, and Aaron Hume-Merry, with Georgia Schofield as the on-board reporter. It is the first fully New Zealand crew to compete in an Ocean Race event since Camper with Team New Zealand's Volvo 70 campaign in 2012.
Thomson is stepping into her first IMOCA campaign off the back of a strong two years in match racing. Named 2025 New Zealand Sailor of the Year, she led her 2.0 Racing Team to runner-up at the 2025 Women's Match Racing Worlds in Chicago, pushing eventual winner Pauline Courtois to a deciding race and matching the team's silver from 2024. She was also the first female helm to reach the podium at the Open Match Racing World Championship. Her route to the campaign has an added logistical twist. She joins the Atlantic delivery and the opening leg of racing, then has to be back in Newport in time to lead her own team at the RNZYS Women's International Championship, which runs from 12 to 19 September. Her arrival with the MSIG Europe team was delayed slightly by the visa required for anyone entering the United States by sea, and she is now expected in France on 5 August, with the crew departing on delivery two days later. Colman is relaxed about the tight turnaround. "We're going to have to sail fast," he said, "and then she's going to have to be quick packing her bags when she gets there."
Merchant and Hume-Merry, an Auckland couple both on and off the water, came onto Colman's radar during a visit to New Zealand last February, where he met them through the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron, a partner of his Aotearoa Ocean Racing project. Their partnership behind the wheel goes back years, with more than 6,000 nautical miles sailed two-handed together. That record includes line honours in their division at the 2022 Northern Triangle race, their first multi-day event together, and overall line and PHRF honours in the mixed-team category at the 2023 Round North Island Race. Both are also steadfast members of Clockwork, the Auckland yacht that won this year's Three Kings Offshore Race, and have raced two Offshore Double Handed World Championship campaigns together in Europe, most recently finishing fifth at the 2025 edition in Cowes, reaching the ten boat final through a repechage win. Hume-Merry also skippers his own boat, Southern Fun, a Laurie Davidson design, and took Division 3 honours aboard her at the 2026 PIC Harbour Classic on the Waitematā Harbour.
Their paths into the sport differ. Hume-Merry started out in Optimists as a seven year old, went on to represent New Zealand in the ILCA 7, and campaigned for Olympic selection in the 49er before a period away from the sport spent competitive cycling. He returned to sailing through the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron's performance programme, where his focus shifted to keelboat and offshore racing. Merchant was introduced to the sport by her father, moved from keelboats into dinghies as a junior, and completed her first offshore race at just 17. She progressed through the RNZYS youth and performance programmes, where the 2.0 Match Racing Team took shape, and has since added podium finishes in international match racing regattas in the United States to her offshore record with Hume-Merry.
It is their initiative Colman singles out. "They're super, super strong at taking initiative and looking at what work needs to be done and finding creative solutions," he said. "It's a real pleasure working with them." The whole crew shares a common thread, he added. "We share that thread of skippers and project managers, all of us, and that definitely colours the way that we approach the challenges and opportunities in front of us."
Colman's own connection to the Royal New Zealand Yacht Squadron dates back around a year, and runs deeper than the current campaign. A club member with family history there through his grandparents and his mother, Colman will race under the RNZYS burgee across the Atlantic, with the club helping build the connections needed to turn the wider Ocean Race campaign into reality.
The inaugural Ocean Race Atlantic starts in New York on 1 September, with six boats racing to Lorient and arrivals expected between 8 and 10 September. Each team is required to carry two women and two men, a first for the IMOCA class. Colman sees real substance behind the rule. "High performance doesn't just require enormous biceps," he said. "These boats are designed to work single-handed, so the way you make them go really well is not brute force, it's working together as a team in a high-performance environment. Typically, women are even better at doing that than men."
MSIG Europe will be the only boat in the fleet without foils, a 2007-generation design originally built for the 2008 Vendée Globe, up against rivals a generation or more newer. Colman frames the Atlantic leg as a deliberate step in building the team and the project rather than a results exercise. "I know it'll be tough racing against a fleet made up entirely of the latest generation of foiling boats, but we'll give everything we have while keeping that competitive spirit we share on board," he said. "It's a fantastic learning opportunity and an important step in building the future of our project. " Asked about the gap in technology, his answer was practical rather than philosophical. "It's more important to be present with the tool that you have," he said, "than to sit on the couch wishing or hoping that you could do differently."
The bigger goal sits further out, on the start line for the 2027 Ocean Race itself. "I'm really excited to sail with these motivated Kiwis and pass on some of my offshore experience," Colman said. Thomson shares that sense of purpose. "I am thrilled to join Aotearoa Ocean Racing and MSIG Europe to participate in a project with such a bold vision for New Zealand sailing," she said. "The opportunity to step into offshore racing, learn alongside an experienced team, and help pave the way toward The Ocean Race motivated me enormously."
For Colman, a two-time Vendée Globe competitor who in 2016 became the first skipper to complete that race without fossil fuels, the ambition extends beyond simply fielding a Kiwi crew. "I want to make this not just a Kiwi team because there are five Kiwis on it, but to make this the Kiwi team," he said, with New Zealand companies and New Zealand fans behind the campaign as well, and the 2027 race due to finish in Auckland after missing the last cycle because of Covid.
A fleet of six
MSIG Europe lines up against five other entries for the inaugural Ocean Race Atlantic. Germany's Team Malizia is skippered by Boris Herrmann under the banner "A Race We Must Win," pairing elite racing with climate advocacy, with Cole Brauer, Justine Mettraux and Julien Villion on board. France's Paul Meilhat returns to the circuit with his team United by the Ocean, fresh off a win in The Ocean Race Europe 2025, alongside co-skipper Mariana Lobato and crewman Benjamin Ferré. Japan's Kojiro Shiraishi leads the DMG Mori Sailing Team, joined by Samantha Davies, Nicolas Lunven and Arisa Moriya. Switzerland's Oliver Heer skippers Embrace the Challenge, with Lincoln Dews, Marie Riou and Liz Wardley completing his crew. And the United States is represented by Francesca Clapcich, the first Italian woman to win The Ocean Race, in 2023, now leading a team backed by 11th Hour Racing, with co-skipper Alberto Bona and crew Elodie-Jane Mettraux and Will Harris.
MSIG Europe is the only daggerboard boat in a fleet otherwise made up entirely of the latest generation of foiling IMOCAs, a gap that will be plain to see once the fleet is on the water.
