The harbour at Kiel was buzzing long before any race gun fired. When The Ocean Race Europe fleet sailed in, the first competition to grab attention wasn't a leg start at all. It was the Pro-Am races, a format that has become one of the event's most-loved traditions.
Pro-Am, short for Professional-Amateur, isn't about championship points or podium finishes. The format brings sponsors, media representatives, and special guests aboard IMOCA 60s for high-energy, close-to-shore runs alongside the professionals. The appeal runs both ways: guests walk away with an experience few sailors ever get, while spectators packed into the Ocean Live Park watch the boats perform before the serious offshore miles begin. For 2025, organisers added a Pro-Am ranking to sharpen the competition slightly, though the light-hearted atmosphere remained firmly intact.
One Friday crew carried more combined Olympic hardware than most national sailing programmes accumulate in a generation. New Zealand's Jo Aleh, Olympic gold and silver medallist and current member of SailGP's Black Foils, joined Germany's Susann Beucke, herself a silver medallist in the 49erFX and now pointing squarely at a solo offshore campaign targeting the 2028 Vendée Globe. Their boat was Canada Ocean Racing's Be Water Positive, an IMOCA 60 skippered by Scott Shawyer.
Shawyer's ambition is a historic one. He is aiming to become the first Canadian to finish the Vendée Globe, a goal that has slipped out of reach across two previous attempts by his country. His Pathway Program runs alongside the campaign, actively bringing new Canadian sailors into offshore racing through training, internships, and professional opportunities.
"This project is about showing what's possible when you push yourself," Shawyer said earlier this year. "The Vendée is the ultimate test of seamanship, but it's also a platform to inspire and to protect the oceans we sail on."
The Kiel Pro-Am served up light winds, which tested the crew's patience if not their nerve. What wasn't in short supply was enthusiasm. Aleh made her feelings about foiling unmistakably clear after stepping off the boat. "These boats look like they're going to absolutely send it. You've got to love foiling," she said, the energy in her words suggesting the brief session had only sharpened her appetite for more.
Beucke, who made the jump from Olympic dinghy sailing to offshore racing in 2022, reflected on just how steep that learning curve had been. "I thought I only had to learn a few things — turns out I had to learn everything again. These boats are bigger, and there's so much more technique involved." Both sailors found easy common ground in the Be Water Positive mission. "We live on the ocean. It's life. We need to look after it," Aleh said, a sentiment that fitted naturally within the event's broader sustainability focus.
Ashore, the Kiellinie waterfront's Ocean Live Park was heaving throughout the weekend. Crowds gathered along the promenade for team presentations, autograph sessions, and ocean literacy workshops. The Ocean Race Summit Kiel drew scientists, policymakers, and sailors together under the theme "Connecting Europe for a Smart Ocean," held at the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics. The agenda covered ocean health challenges ranging from plastic pollution and climate impacts to unexploded wartime munitions resting on the Baltic seabed.
Germany's State Secretary for the Environment, Jochen Flasbarth, called for urgent action, announcing investment in nature-based solutions alongside a €100 million coastal munitions recovery programme. Schleswig-Holstein's Environment Minister Tobias Goldschmidt was equally direct: "There is no time to lose and no room for excuse."
The sailors themselves offered a frontline perspective on what ocean degradation looks like from the water. Boris Herrmann of Team Malizia praised the Summit's contribution to climate action, while Rosalin Kuiper of Team Holcim-PRB put the sailors' role plainly: "the ocean is our playground… we are ambassadors for the ocean." A panel discussion on participatory science highlighted how IMOCA teams gather critical ocean data during races, feeding into global research programmes. The day closed with a session called "Making Waves – Baltic Edition," centred on a call to "give the Baltic a break" by reducing fishing pressure to help restore ecological balance.
Herrmann, whose home crowd had turned out in force, captured the mood on the promenade well. "It's been fantastic to see so many stakeholders come together to make such an amazing event," he said. "I see a lot of very happy fans and sailors on the promenade — it's exciting for all of us."
As the fleet prepares to leave Kiel, the Summit's Racing for the Ocean message travels with it.
When Sunday's start gun fires, the relaxed energy of the festival gives way to genuine competition. Leg One carries the fleet from Kiel to Portsmouth in what is expected to be a three-to-four day sprint, opening a six-week, 4,500-nautical mile circuit around Europe. From the Baltic and North Seas the course moves out to the Atlantic, into the Mediterranean, and eventually to Boka Bay in Montenegro.
Paprec-Arkéa skipper Yoann Richomme was candid about the challenge ahead. "It's one of the trickiest race courses we can have," he said. "From tiny islands to open ocean and light Mediterranean breezes, every leg could have a different winner."
For Aleh, Beucke, Shawyer, and the Be Water Positive crew, the Pro-Am session was a meeting point for Olympic pedigree, offshore ambition, and a shared conviction about why healthy oceans matter. The Ocean Race Europe generates something worth watching not only through the racing itself, but through the moments when fans, sponsors, and professionals find themselves grinning side by side into the same wind.
