Oliver Heer's Embrace the Challenge Team crossed the finish line in Lorient at 01:36:17 UTC (03:36:17 CEST) in the early hours of Friday morning, completing a debut Ocean Race Atlantic campaign in fifth place.
It wasn't a straightforward run. The Swiss crew started strongly and kept pace with the fleet through the opening days, before tearing their mainsail badly in rough conditions around the halfway mark. That damage cost them touch with the weather system carrying the top four boats across the Atlantic.
From there, the second half of the race became something of a solo affair. Embrace the Challenge sailed largely on its own, generally comfortably ahead of the non-foiling MSIG Europe crew behind them, but unable to claw back into podium contention.
There were bright spots along the way. The team picked up two wins in the Super Sprint series across the eight sprints held during the race, enough for fourth on that leaderboard.
"We're a very happy crew," Heer said dockside after the finish. "We learned loads on the race course. I think for our first race we achieved what we wanted. Being just 12 hours behind the winner in our first race in such a fleet is a good result."
He was frank about where things unravelled. "The first few days of the race went well, we had good pace and we found we could keep up with the fleet despite being the oldest foiling boat and the newest crew. But then we couldn't find a good mode to sail in the second front... then the damage to the mainsail and we lost touch."
Liz Wardley echoed that assessment. "Before the conditions got really fruity we were right there and pretty confident, but when it got really windy and the sea state got up we started to drop back. We just couldn't find the right mode to push the boat, so that's a learning curve for us."
She found some consolation in the recovery. "In hindsight, we had great conditions after we got the mainsail back up and managed to catch up to the fleet so that was good!"
Five of the six-boat fleet are now dockside in Lorient. Only MSIG Europe remains out on the course.
That's the boat with the New Zealand interest. Skippered by Kiwi Conrad Colman, MSIG Europe had 280 miles left to run and is expected into Lorient on Saturday night.
The standings so far: United by the Ocean (FRA) on 6 points, Team Francesca Clapcich powered by 11th Hour Racing (USA/ITA) on 5, DMG MORI Global One (JPN) on 4, Team Malizia (GER) on 3, and Embrace the Challenge (SUI) on 2. MSIG Europe (NZL) is still racing.
