Home Stretch: Kiwi Crew Race the Clock as MSIG Europe Chases the Line
2 min read
Five boats are home. One is left out there, and it's ours. Conrad Colman's Aotearoa Ocean Racing crew aboard MSIG Europe sat 74.3 nautical miles from Lorient this morning, the last boat in the fleet still racing, up against the weather as much as the clock.
Holding a northerly line at close to 90 degrees to the mark, doing 15 to 19 knots, the crew know exactly what's closing in behind them: a high-pressure zone that could kill the breeze before they reach the finish. Their own half-joking shorthand for it, watching the clouds shrink and the sky change: "Winter is coming." It's the kind of line you only make when you're still pushing hard, not when you've given up, and every mile Colman's crew punch out now is a mile banked before the wind potentially dies on them. This morning's numbers show it too, a strong top speed against a much lower six-hour average, the breeze already softening even as the crew push to outrun it.
Ocean Race Atlantic: Distance to Finish
Tracker snapshots, Day 1 to the finish
Source: The Ocean Race Atlantic live tracker
This is the crew this whole series has followed. A young, largely first-time IMOCA line-up, sailing the only boat in the fleet without foils, up against designs a generation newer and, on paper, simply faster. They've spent nine days proving that gap wasn't for lack of trying, a snapped furling line, a torn boom track, the constant grind of sailing the oldest boat in the fleet as hard as it can go, and they're still out there giving it everything for the final 74 miles. However the finish plays out, that's a crew worth cheering all the way to the line.
Embrace the Challenge's finish: the 17-hour stop nobody had reported
Embrace the Challenge crossed the line in fifth, 12 hours behind the winner. Skipper Oliver Heer's own account of the race adds a fact we didn't have before: his crew, the youngest in the fleet on the oldest boat, were genuinely competitive in the opening days before a brutal second weather front, 40 knots and a wind angle they simply couldn't find a mode for, forced them to slow dramatically and lose touch with the front of the fleet. The mainsail damage that followed forced a full stop of around 17 hours, the longest complete halt reported by any boat this race. Getting pushed out the back of that front ended up opening a shorter route the leaders weren't sailing, which is exactly how they clawed back into a result Heer is proud to put his name to: "For our first race, we've done alright. We're beyond proud of it."
What's left
Race organisers' own routing has MSIG Europe covering close to 107 nautical miles in the next 24 hours if the breeze holds, more than enough to finish today. Whether that breeze holds long enough is the only question left in this race. Come on, Aotearoa Ocean Racing.
