Flooded bow and wild shifts test Malizia's slim Atlantic lead

Team Malizia's grip on the lead in The Ocean Race Atlantic has loosened considerably after a torrid 24 hours that brought rogue wind shifts, a flooded bow compartment and a hard-charging chase pack.

The German-flagged IMOCA, skippered by Boris Herrmann, has spent the second full day of the New York to Lorient leg fending off Paul Meilhat's United by the Ocean and Francesca Clapcich's 11th Hour Racing, both of which found cleaner breeze further south and used it to close the gap fast.

Justine Mettraux, sailing for Team Malizia, didn't hide her frustration.

"We were a bit more north than our opponents and we had some headers (windshifts) that were unexpected, so we couldn't go east as much as we would like," she said. "That's happening again, at the moment. We are supposed to have the wind around 150 to 160 direction and at the moment we have the wind much more in front of us. We have north-east, which is really not ideal as the other boats don't have that."

"So we have lost quite a lot of ground today. But there is not much we can do except try to make the most with what we have and hope it will improve. But it's not been easy since last night."

Then came the hatch problem.

A cover blew off the forward ballast tank, letting sea water pour into the bow. Herrmann noticed the water level indicator dropping and went forward to investigate.

"The level on the indicator was getting lower and lower, so I went forward to check," he said. "I found that one of the inspection hatches had blown off with the slamming of the boat. It was full of water in the front, about 200 litres in that compartment. So we stole a cover from the back ballast, put it in the front and emptied out the water. Now we can use our ballast again in the front. But I hope we will not forget that in the back we have no hatch cover!"

While Malizia struggled up north, Meilhat and Clapcich made steady gains in the south. It was enough for United by the Ocean to briefly snatch the race lead at around midnight CEST (2200 UTC), holding it for a couple of hours before Malizia clawed back to the top by afternoon.

At 1400 CEST (1200 UTC), Team Malizia led United by the Ocean by 11 nautical miles, with Team Francesca Clapcich powered by 11th Hour Racing a further nine nm back in third.

Kojiro Shiraishi's DMG MORI Sailing Team sat fourth, 42 nm off the lead after a strong overnight surge. Oliver Heer's Embrace the Challenge was fifth, another five nm behind.

New Zealand's Conrad Colman, racing the non-foiling MSIG Europe, had been holding remarkably well against the faster foiling fleet until a headsail furling issue forced the crew to bear away downwind to the north to sort it out. That cost the Kiwi team around 30 nm. By this afternoon they were back on course, though well to the north and 116 nm off the lead.

The top five were making solid speed this afternoon, sailing north-east at 12 to 19 knots in southerly winds of 12 to 18 knots.

Boat-on-boat racing isn't the only battle here. Every crew is also weighing position against a North Atlantic low pressure system building around them, trying to get ahead of its leading edge and ride the front eastward rather than fall back into the worst of the storm.

"We are trying to go as fast as we can but we have a little sea state, swell, coming from the bow," Meilhat said. "It is not very comfortable, but it is sunny and fast. I think these will be better conditions than what we will find over the following days, so we are trying to enjoy them."

Meilhat's plan is to stay as far ahead of the depression as possible by the end of the day, to avoid the worst of the conditions.

"The more you are back, the more you have strong winds and big waves," he said.

There was a silver lining for Team Malizia on Friday. The German crew won their second Super Sprint of the series, beating the DMG MORI Global One boat, while Conrad Colman's MSIG Europe team made a surprising and impressive entry onto the podium, taking third place.