Six IMOCA crews sailed out of New York Harbour today, passing the Statue of Liberty in a midday ceremonial start on the inaugural edition of The Ocean Race Atlantic, bound for Lorient, France.
It was a tidy send-off after five days docked at Brooklyn Bridge Marina. Crews and their onboard reporters walked down to their boats one by one on Tuesday morning, shore teams and fans waving them off as they motored out into the harbour.
Racing doesn't begin straight away. The fleet must first pick its way through marine mammal exclusion zones off the city at low speed, before reaching the official start area roughly 150 nautical miles offshore. Race mode kicks in at 0600 Eastern Time (1200 CEST) on Wednesday, September 2, though light conditions en route may force a short postponement.
There's a New Zealand thread in this one. Conrad Colman skippers MSIG Europe, and he's under no illusions about his boat's chances against the foilers. It's an older-generation, non-foiling design, the same hull that raced as MS Amlin to 21st in the 2024-25 Vendée Globe.
"We have a very different boat and so we will be the first to fall off the front," Colman said. "That will make life more difficult for us, but we are still talking about some spectacular conditions that we cannot wait to get our teeth into. We may not set the overall speed record for the class, but we are chasing the overall speed record for the boat. We can't wait to get out there and get the boat whipped up to full speed. It's going to be fun."
Several of these teams also have their sights on the around-the-world edition of The Ocean Race starting January 2027, and this 3,000-nautical-mile transatlantic sprint gives them a chance to test their form against rivals before then.
The fleet mixes proven campaigners with fresh builds. Paul Meilhat and Mariana Lobato's United by the Ocean won The Ocean Race Europe 2025 as Biotherm. Francesca Clapcich's 11th Hour Racing raced round the world as Team Malizia in 2022-23. Oliver Heer's Embrace the Challenge went to eighth in the last Vendée Globe under Swiss sailor Justine Mettraux, sailing as TeamWork – Team Snef. Then there are two brand-new boats, Boris Herrmann's Malizia 4 and Kojiro Shiraishi's DMG MORI GLOBAL, both racing for the first time.
Weather looks set to shape the race. A fast-moving low pressure system is expected to track east with the fleet, bringing strong winds and quick sailing, with pre-race routing suggesting the leaders could reach Lorient in six to nine days.
Cole Brauer, sailing for Team Malizia, reckons the first day will be the hardest part, weatherwise.
"We are going to be dealing with the Gulf Stream, light winds, it's predicted to be pretty flukey and up and down, then deciding on whether you take the north route or the south route," she said. "But, once we get going, we have five days of bombing all the way down to France."
There's a record in play too. The race's 24-hour distance mark of 641.13 nautical miles (1,187.39 km), set by Herrmann's Team Malizia crew on Leg 5 of The Ocean Race 2023 from Newport, Rhode Island, to Aarhus, Denmark, could be under threat if the weather system delivers as forecast.
Francesca Clapcich, skipper of 11th Hour Racing, sounded ready. "We are looking forward to being back out there and the conditions are looking pretty awesome for getting to the other side of the pond pretty quickly," she said. "We are expecting a pretty fast race. Some pretty fast angles, reaching, so it could be record-breaking conditions for the race. Right now it's looking like six or seven days to get to Lorient. I hope the guys in the tech team can beat us to the other side."
For Herrmann and Shiraishi, this outing is about discovering what their new boats can do. Neither hid their excitement.
"Finally, we are getting to the action that we came for," Herrmann said. "We can't wait to start sailing and discover this new boat in conditions we have seen it sailing in before, and against competitors we have never seen before on the water."
Shiraishi echoed the sentiment. "It's the first race for our new boat and we are hoping to be able to test a lot of its characteristics during the Atlantic crossing," he said.
Meilhat said his crew were ready to shift focus after a week ashore in New York. "Now it is time to focus on the race," he said. "I think we are really lucky, because maybe we will have really nice weather to cross the Atlantic very fast. We have a new crew but we did the delivery trip together and that is good because the newcomers can learn about the boat, but also for the team spirit."
Heer, meanwhile, is adjusting to fully crewed racing after mostly sailing solo. "Sailing as a team, performing in such a small space with five of us on the boat is quite a challenge," he said. "But we have assembled an amazing crew. Of the four sailors, I am the only one who has not competed in an edition of The Ocean Race and I just cannot wait to share the highs and lows of this race with the people around me."
The race will be streamed daily via the OnBoard Live Show at 1700 CEST / 1500 UTC, alongside international broadcasters.
