Aotearoa Ocean Racing's Colman: "Beat People When They're at Their Best, Not When They're Broken Down"

Five days into the Ocean Race Atlantic, Conrad Colman's Aotearoa Ocean Racing campaign is 480 nautical miles off the lead aboard MSIG Europe. As covered elsewhere in this series, the fleet split apart in a storm that left MSIG Europe fighting "washing machine" seas well off the pace, and Embrace the Challenge nursing a torn mainsail toward Lorient. Colman himself isn't pretending otherwise.

"It was always going to happen," Colman said of losing touch with the fleet's newer, faster boats. "I didn't think it was going to sting as much as it did. So that's on me." He separates the mental toll from the physical one: getting dropped hurt more than any of the actual sailing has. On top of the furling line repair reported earlier in the week, the crew has also ripped the track clean off the boom, the result of it banging against the wind vane in the rough conditions, one more job added to the list.

Colman isn't conceding anything. "We're certainly behaving like we still have a chance," he said, adding that if an opportunity comes to close back in on a struggling rival, Aotearoa Ocean Racing will take it. His own line on where that leaves things: "You want to beat people when they're at their best, not when they're broken down."

Malizia's overnight drama continues

Team Malizia's brand new boat had another rough night. The autopilot failed again, this time requiring Cole Brauer to work the repair with Boris Herrmann's help after he woke to assist, all while hand-steering with no autopilot running. Partway through the job, a 30-knot squall hit, forcing Julien Villion out on deck to take a second reef. It's the second time this week the traveler sheet has needed replacing. As the broadcast itself put it, a new boat only a couple of months out of the build shed was always going to have teething problems, and this leg is providing plenty of them.

Despite all that, Malizia won the day's Super Sprint outright, its fourth win in five days, and now leads the cumulative Super Sprint standings by two points over DMG Mori. Whatever is going wrong on the boat overnight, the crew are still finding pace over a 20-minute dash.

The front four, and a genuinely fast 24 hours

11th Hour Racing leads the fleet, roughly 20 nautical miles ahead of United by the Ocean, with DMG Mori a further 40nm back at last report. All three covered more than 520 nautical miles in the last 24 hours, 11th Hour Racing topping the fleet at 547nm, genuinely quick sailing, though still short of the 641.13nm 24-hour record set by Malizia's predecessor boat during the 2022-23 round-the-world Ocean Race.

11th Hour Racing's current boat, now sailed by Francesca Clapcich, was previously campaigned as Malizia 3. Will Harris, on loan from Team Malizia for this race, knows the boat intimately from his time on it, and is helping Clapcich's crew get the best out of a design he already understands, useful preparation ahead of the full round-the-world Ocean Race in a few months' time.

Paul Meilhat, aboard United by the Ocean, reported his crew's sole focus through the rough patch was keeping the boat and crew safe rather than chasing strategy. They've now come out the other side sitting almost exactly halfway between New York and Lorient, with Meilhat estimating four days to the finish. He also raised the possibility that a windless patch overnight could let Malizia close back in, potentially bunching the fleet up for a tighter finish than the standings currently suggest.

Aboard DMG Mori, skipper Kojiro Shiraishi, translated by Arisa Moriya, kept it simple: "We have had so many troubles, but it's a great teamwork... our goal is winning."

Standings, Day 5

United by the Ocean – 1327.6nm to finish

11th Hour Racing – 1329.4nm (1.9nm behind)

DMG Mori – 1387.3nm (59.7nm behind)

Malizia – 1441.3nm (113.7nm behind)

Embrace the Challenge – 1716.1nm (388.5nm behind)

MSIG Europe – 1807.8nm (480.3nm behind)

The fleet is roughly halfway across the Atlantic, with the front four needing to track north over the coming day to stay inside the breeze and avoid a developing light-wind zone to the south. Five days in, six boats, one ocean, and by Colman's own reckoning, still everything to play for.