Conrad Colman's all-Kiwi crew aboard MSIG Europe is still fighting from the back of the Ocean Race Atlantic fleet, and on day two, that fight showed. Sailing the oldest, only foil-less boat in the six-strong IMOCA field, Colman's young New Zealand team moved up the order in the fleet's second Super Sprint, jumping clear of DMG Mori's brand new foiler.
VIDEO: Drone footage of Aotearoa Ocean Racing, Day 2, Ocean Race Atlantic 2026. Video credit: Georgia Schofield / Aotearoa Ocean Racing
MSIG Europe gave up serious technology to every other boat on the start line. Every mile it claws back against a fresher, faster design is a mile earned the hard way.
Further up the fleet, the bigger story of the day was unfolding: the race lead changed hands for the first time.
The tack that decided the lead
Around midnight on the first night, every boat in the fleet faced the same decision: when to tack and line up for the long reach across the Atlantic. Malizia 4, Team Malizia's brand new boat, was out in front and had to make the call first, with everyone else watching and reacting to how it played out for them.
United by the Ocean and 11th Hour Racing chose to push further east than Malizia. It wasn't an easy call anywhere in the fleet. Aboard Embrace the Challenge, the crew worked through the decision in real time, weather files spread out, weighing the fleet's read on the breeze against their own instincts. "Whether we should keep on going with the rest of the fleet or whether we should trust our instincts and tack away," as the crew put it, before settling on their move.
By Friday morning, the eastward push from United by the Ocean and 11th Hour Racing had paid off. Malizia had led by as much as 8 nautical miles after the tack, but the two chasing boats kept closing the gap through the night. By 1:45am the margin was down to 2.2 nautical miles. By 9:37am, United by the Ocean had gone through into the lead outright, 0.9 nautical miles clear of Malizia, with 11th Hour Racing right behind in third.
Malizia didn't help themselves. Boris Herrmann's crew ended up making three tacks overnight, most of the fleet needed only one, as nerves crept in and they tried to defend a lead that was already slipping. That aside, it's been a strong run for the new boat and its crew, which includes Justine Mettraux, a two-time Ocean Race winner, first with Dongfeng Racing Team in 2017-18, then with 11th Hour Racing Team under Charlie Enright in the most recent edition.
Second Super Sprint: Clapcich's boat edges it, Kiwis move up
The fleet's second daily Super Sprint played out much closer than the first. Francesca Clapcich's boat took the win, narrowly, with Malizia right on their heels in second and United by the Ocean close behind in third. Embrace the Challenge came home fourth.
Then came MSIG Europe. Colman's 20-year-old design jumped ahead of DMG Mori this time, a reversal of the previous day's sprint order. Without a foil to lift the bow, MSIG Europe has been riding the waves noticeably more smoothly than some of the newer boats, according to onboard footage. Onboard reporter Georgia Schofield was seen readying a drone to capture the boat's run from the air, right at the edge of what the wind and boat speed would safely allow.
DMG Mori's slower climb up the order may come down to workload rather than raw pace. This leg has few tacks or jibes to punctuate it, but sail changes have been constant, every shift in wind angle or strength demands a different sail, all of it needing to be stowed and balanced against the boat's weight. DMG Mori has been doing plenty of that work without yet finding the speed to show for it.
Anna Merchant and Megan Thomson, both aboard MSIG Europe, raced together on Racing 2.0, a New Zealand match-racing team, before either of them had any connection to this race. They were both named NZ Sailor of the Year, met Colman on a trip to Lorient, and he invited them aboard. Three separate strands of New Zealand sailing, converging on one 20-year-old IMOCA in the middle of the Atlantic.
Aboard United by the Ocean, sailor Benjamin Ferré put the sleepless, wave-battered night plainly: "Every time I would try to sleep, the big wave would hit somewhere, and it would just crash, like a smash burger."
What's next
The forecast for the coming days centres on a low pressure system building off the American coast. Whoever connects with it first stands to pick up serious pace, riding it in tandem with the Gulf Stream underneath them, and there's genuine talk on board of record-breaking speeds if the timing works out. For a fleet that has spent its first 24 hours grinding upwind in rough, wet conditions, that's the payoff everyone is chasing, MSIG Europe included.
With the lead changing hands for the first time and the whole fleet still tightly grouped, Day 2 has turned what looked like a comfortable Malizia breakaway into a three-boat contest at the front. Further back, Colman's Kiwis keep pushing. Six days of racing remain to Lorient, and the lead has already changed hands once.
