PLUS ÇA CHANGE

THE 2023 EDITION OF THE OCEAN RACE WAS ALL CHANGE FOR THIS HISTORIC EVENT. HELEN FRETTER GETS THE INSIDE STORY FROM THE TEAMS AT THE FINISH IN GENOA

In the sweltering heat of midsummer in the Ligurian Sea, temperatures and tensions were steadily rising on board 11th Hour Racing.

Simon ‘Si Fi’ Fisher restlessly tidied lines in the cockpit. Skipper Charlie Enright was glued to his phones, endlessly hitting refresh. “You were either in your bunk staring at the ceiling, or couldn’t sit still and just walking around talking to yourself. It was a weird place,” recalls crewmember Jack Bouttell of the long delivery from The Hague to Genoa.

With zephyr light winds, the IMOCA’s usual roar had been replaced with an uncomfortable quiet, broken only by the hum of the engine as the crew frantically tried to make headway to Genoa. It made no difference when they got there. After 36,000 miles of racing, nine months criss-crossing the world’s oceans, the result of The Ocean Race and the fate of the team would be decided by six people sitting in a room as an International Jury came together to decide if 11th Hour Racing should be granted redress after a terrifying collision in The Hague.

When the news came in that average points would be awarded for the final stage, there were no raucous howls of celebration. The four sailors aboard Malama sat, silently stunned, head in hands, as the engine hummed on. It was, by any count, a very strange way to win an around the world race.

A BIT DIFFERENT

The 2023 The Ocean Race was always going to be a little bit different. While it marked the 50th anniversary of the first edition of the then-Whitbread Round the World Race, the changes for the 14th running of the event were peculiarly of its time.