Oakley Marsh finishes second by 18 seconds after 650-mile Atlantic battle

Six hundred and fifty miles. Eighteen seconds. Four days and nights of Atlantic weather at its most brutal. No combination of numbers fully conveys what Oakley Marsh endured at the 2026 Le Défi Paprec, but those come close enough to set the scene.

Le Défi Paprec ranks among the premier events on the French offshore racing calendar, contested aboard the Figaro Beneteau 3, a one-design class that has become the standard proving ground for France's best offshore sailors. When Marsh and his German co-skipper Jens Meier lined up at the start in Perros-Guirec, it was only Marsh's third major race in the class, and they were sailing aboard Chipmunk.

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Figaro Beneteau 3

World's first production foiling monohull

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Figaro Beneteau 3 — the world's first production foiling monohull. Designed by Van Peteghem–Lauriot Prévost.

The opening leg covers approximately 15 nautical miles from Perros-Guirec to Wolf Rock, a lighthouse perched on a reef at the far tip of Cornwall. Conditions were medium to strong: upwind sailing, waves in the 1.5 to 2 metre range, and wind averaging around 20 knots, with squalls pushing through the fleet periodically. Marsh had been studying those squalls carefully, alert to the advantage they might offer.

QUOTE 1

ON WOLF ROCK TACTICS

"Wherever you're situated around the squall, you either get a lift or a knock. You can actually use them to your advantage if you get on the correct side of them."

Oakley Marsh

He tacked Chipmunk under an approaching squall, placing her furthest west in the fleet and setting up a favourable tidal shift on the approach to the mark. Other boats, pushed wide by strong current, had overshot. Chipmunk came in fast on a reaching angle and gained two places right at Wolf Rock.

What followed was, by Marsh's own reckoning, some of the craziest sailing he has ever experienced. A deep Atlantic low was tracking toward the fleet, and from around 5pm until 4am the following morning the race became a survival exercise dressed as a competition. Wind reached 44 knots. Rain came in sideways. Waves built to 3 metres of short, aggressive chop that broke against the hull rather than washing underneath it. When the bow pitched down into a trough, the whole boat launched briefly before washing the crew backwards along the cockpit.

Elsewhere in the fleet, conditions were taking their toll. One Solitaire boat had dismasted at Wolf Rock. Other Solitaire sailors were climbing their rigs at sea. Yet the calculus of offshore one-design racing did not change aboard Chipmunk.

QUOTE 2

ON OFFSHORE RACING

"It's not like there's a balance between survival and racing. In these boats, it's less about survival, and it's still more about the racing."

Oakley Marsh

Marsh describes his mental state during the worst of the depression as almost contradictory: a quiet voice on one side asking what he was doing there, and on the other something he can only describe as rock metal, a visceral drive to keep attacking and stay in the race.

When the depression cleared, the fleet tacked onto starboard for the long run south, approximately 430 nautical miles down to Cape Finisterre, the rugged, rock-bound peninsula on the north-western coast of Galicia, Spain. Chipmunk had come through the front in third, Marsh's positioning further east having allowed him to pick up the shift ahead of most of the fleet. A slightly early tack, however, cost them the full extent of the right-hand shift, and boats sitting further inshore climbed into better pressure. Chipmunk found herself lower than ideal for the long stretch south, grinding through 40-plus knots and 3.5-metre seas, base layers getting wet, the boat held at a constant 25-degree heel in the dark.

Cape Finisterre carries a well-earned reputation as a weather trap. Cold upwelling suppresses sea-breeze formation, creating unpredictable conditions that can leave boats stranded in dead calm while others sail free. Marsh and Meier had known going in that this was where everything would be decided. Chipmunk had not arrived in a position of strength. Dying wind ahead of the Cape had compressed the fleet, and the new coastal breeze was slow to fill.

Then Chipmunk's spinnaker went up, the bow swung downwind, the sea flattened, and the sun came out.

After three days of relentless wetness and discomfort, Marsh found himself counting three distinct pleasures arriving together. "One, finally the sea state dropped off. Two, the wind was shifting to come from behind us. Three, the sun was coming out."

The crew dried their gear, slept, and reset. As the afternoon breeze began to die against the Spanish coast, Marsh spotted a section of pressure fading to the left and a new breeze building to the right. He jibed and committed. Four boats were caught in the no-wind zone. Chipmunk sailed around them, connected with the new breeze, and moved from fifth to second.

Out front, Frenchmen Thomas Dinas and Eliott Coville, helming Auray Quiberon by Orlabay, had built too commanding a lead and sailed too well throughout to be caught. They went on to win overall, completing the course in 3 days, 23 hours, 16 minutes, and 29 seconds.

QUOTE 1

ON THE WINNING CREW, THOMAS DINAS AND ELIOTT COVILLE

"They really sailed the perfect race."

Oakley Marsh

Chipmunk was still in the race, still in second place. The spinnaker pulled, the sunset lit the water, and that felt like enough.

The race committee shortened the course to a virtual finish line well short of Vigo as the breeze evaporated ahead of the fleet. By sunrise, 650 miles of offshore racing had become a match race. Former ski champion and Croatian competitor Ivica Kostelic, along with Turkish co-skipper Deniz Bagc, sailing Amelicor, had closed in the dying breeze until just two or three boat lengths separated the two crews. Jokes went back and forth on the VHF radio about who would be buying the first round ashore.

Then came the moment that nearly unravelled it. A right-hand shift arrived on the approach to the virtual finish and Marsh was slow to react. Chipmunk overshot the gate. A door cracked open and Amelicor went through. Marsh went below, ran the numbers, fixed a precise bearing on the waypoint, and came back up.

QUOTE 1

ON COMING SeCOND IN TEH 2026 DEFI PAPREC

"I calculated the shortest distance to where we had to be. I said, right, this is your number. This is how we're going to get second place."

Oakley Marsh

Chipmunk crept back ahead. She crossed the finish line 650 miles from where the race had begun, with 18 seconds between her and Amelicor in third.

Marsh speaks about the result with genuine, if modest, satisfaction. It was only his third Figaro race, contested against sailors who have built entire careers around this boat and this circuit.

QUOTE 1

ON THE INTERNATIONAL OFFSHORE SAILING

"As an international, you are an underdog."

Oakley Marsh

The way he tells it, though, this is less a story about an underdog than about a sailor who knew when to attack, when to hold, and when to go below and do the mathematics while everything hung in the balance.

The tack into the squall at Wolf Rock, the tack out of the Atlantic depression, the jibe to the right off Cape Finisterre, the final bearing calculation in the dying breeze: each was the right call made under pressure, across four days without reliable rest.

The round is on him. He earned it.