The North Atlantic is showing no mercy to the six IMOCA crews racing from New York to Lorient in the inaugural Ocean Race Atlantic. Five days in, the fleet has been stretched across 430 miles by wildly different conditions, some boats clear of trouble, others still fighting for their lives in it.
At the front, three boats have sailed clear of the low pressure system that battered them the day before, when gusts topped 30 knots and the sea state turned eating and sleeping into a genuine struggle. Francesca Clapcich's 11th Hour Racing boat (USA) leads, with Paul Meilhat's United by the Ocean (FRA) and Kojiro Shiraishi's DMG MORI Global One (JPN) in hot pursuit.
"I don't remember so many days like this on an IMOCA," Clapcich said. "It was not really about the wind. We had strong wind but it was really the sea state that was terrible. The wave angle, sort of a wide upwind / close reach, was so painful."
She added that the toll was as much mental as physical. "We had such strong winds and big seas that we had to reduce some sail, but after that the boat was just going on its own. Mentally it's really hard. You cannot move on board, it's hard to eat, it's hard to drink. It's nice to have other people on board, you are sharing the pain."
By 1200 UTC today, as the leading group passed the halfway point in terms of mileage, Clapcich's boat held a 22-nautical-mile advantage over United by the Ocean, with DMG MORI Global One a further 14 nm back in third.
Meilhat, co-skipper of United by the Ocean, reckons the second half could be quicker than the first. "We are exactly in the middle of the Atlantic, with the same distance to Lorient and from New York. So it's 1500 miles to go. It should be much easier than the start, with maybe more flat water, and higher average speed, so it's probably going to be fast."
He's expecting things to bunch up too. "We are just behind 11th Hour Racing and we have DMG MORI (Global One) a few miles back. And maybe Boris will join us because we are almost certainly stopping with no wind tonight, so maybe we can reduce the gap. It means the race will be really open. It's possible we all arrive in Lorient together!!"
Nicolas Lunven, aboard DMG MORI Global One, described conditions deep inside the depression as brutal. "We are reaching at 80-90 true wind angle in 30-35 knots of wind. It's quite uncomfortable and very noisy. We have to find the right balance between the performance, the comfort on board, and to not break anything. Sometimes we ease the sheets to make sure the boat is not going at 35 knots and doesn't do a big nosedive."
The front three are still clocking boat speeds in the mid-to-high twenties, chasing 20 to 25-knot southerlies even now they're clear of the worst weather.
Further back, it's a different story entirely. Boris Herrmann's Team Malizia sits fourth, 115 nm off the lead, still stuck in the low pressure system and battling winds above 25 knots and a punishing, slamming sea. The crew is trying to reconnect with the leaders after slowing on Saturday to repair a foil ram and controls.
Oliver Heer's Embrace the Challenge (SUI) has had a rough patch too. The crew suffered a significant tear in their mainsail while attempting to put in a third reef the previous evening, and with conditions too dangerous to fix it in the dark, they dropped the sail entirely to wait for daylight.
"Well, this is not the Sunday morning we wanted, but here we are," Heer said. "Last night, just before sunset, we wanted to put the third reef in, and the leech line ripped on our mainsail. It's about a two-metre tear inside the leech tape. Conditions were too bad to attempt a repair, but now here we are at first light and Liz [Wardley] is already sitting inside our mainsail and starting our repair. We are confident. We hope that if we give it our best we will be back out racing and sailing to the finish line in Lorient by tonight."
Liz Wardley, well regarded for her onboard repair skills, explained her approach. "Luckily we have got some nice breeze to dry the sail off. We will prep it with a bit of acetone, we are going to Sikaflex them (the patches) down as well. We have got one hit at this as we only have enough material for one go at it. So we will make sure it's nice and clean, make sure it adheres properly, and then we will sew it again. I'm going to be in this boom bag all day, I reckon."
There's a Kiwi angle to this story too, and not a comfortable one. Conrad Colman's MSIG Europe (NZL), sitting sixth, has fallen out the back of the storm system into light air and a nasty westerly swell, with the daggerboard boat's bow slamming down repeatedly as it tries to work downwind.
"Now we have fallen out of the system, the boat is just wallowing around like it's in a washing machine," Colman reported. "We have no power, nine knots of wind and we are trying to go downwind in a huge sea state. Not only are we left behind by the other boats, but we can't make decent progress ourselves."
"I feel like I'm suffering along with my boat," he added. "We ripped the track off the boom yesterday from it banging against the vang. I'm afraid about shock loading things. It's in conditions like this that the boat suffers more than if we are going super fast in stable conditions. I'm just afraid we are going to blow the boat up."
It is a stark reminder of how hard these boats, and the sailors aboard them, are being pushed.
With the leading trio now approaching a patch of lighter wind, the door is open for the chasing pack to close the gap. Expect the group behind to push harder than ever over the coming day.
In Sunday's Super Sprint, Team Malizia claimed the win, their third from five sprints, putting them top of that leaderboard ahead of DMG MORI Global One, which finished second on the day and sits second overall.
