11th Hour Racing Team - USA
The 11th Hour Racing Team is an American team founded in 2019 by two American sailors: Charlie Enright at the helm and Mark Towill at the head of the team. They are the first to announce their candidacy for this first IMOCA crewed round the world race with stopovers, and have clearly announced their intention to win. Based in Newport, which will be the North American stopover city for the third consecutive edition, the team shares its training between the United States and Concarneau, Brittany.
Are present on board :
- The British Simon Fisher winner of The Ocean Race 2014-15 with Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing
- The Australian/British sailor Jack Bouttell ,
- The Swiss woman Justine Mettraux 7th in the 2021 Vendée Globe
- Both were part of the winning team of the last 2017-2018 edition, Dongfeng Race Team.
- Francesca Clapcich , Olympic sailor and figarist who participated in The Ocean Race 2017-2018 with Turn the Aide on Plastic.
- Amaury Ross the famous American photographer and videographer will be the onboard mediaman. He is participating in his 4th campaign of The Ocean Race.
The IMOCA M?lama
The IMOCA Malama is the first boat in its class to have been built specifically for crewed ocean racing around the world, and not for solo sailing. It is a Verdier design built by CDK Technologies and launched in August 2021. To train, the team has already sailed Malama nearly 35,000 nautical miles, including four Atlantic crossings.
Team Malizia - Germany
Founded in 2016 by Monegasque businessman and sailor, Pierre Casiraghi, and German skipper Boris Herrmann, Team Malizia is participating in its first challenge on The Ocean Race. This will not be the first circumnavigation for the skipper who has participated in several Vendée Globe races and finished 5th in the 2020-2021 edition. The team's new boat, SeaExplorer was launched in July 2022. Thought to be a solo boat, it has been adapted to race with a crew.
We will find at the sides of Boris Herrmann :
- The British Will Harris a former expert in The Ocean Race and Boris' co-skipper in the 2019 Transat Jaques Vabre.
- The Dutch sailor Rosalin Kuiper who finished 2nd in the VO65 one-design in the first edition of The Ocean Race Europe in 2021.
- The French Nicolas Lunven he is a two-time winner of the Solitaire du Figaro in 2009 and 2017. He has also participated in two campaigns of The Ocean Race, in 2014-15 with the Spanish team MAPFRE and again in 2017-18 with Turn the Tide on Plastic.
- Yann Eliès a great sailor in the IMOCA class, three times winner of the Transat Jacques Vabre and the Solitaire du Figaro.
- The French sailor Axelle Pillain after a brilliant career in gymnastics, she moved to the world of ocean racing with the Mini Transat. She has also worked as an electronics and performance engineer for Spindrift Racing and Corum L'Épargne.
- The Franco-German documentary filmmaker Antoine Auriol who is also world champion in kitesurfing in 2010, is the mediaman.
The IMOCA Malizia - Seaexplorer
The IMOCA Malizia - Seaexplorer was designed by VPLP and built in Vannes before its launch on July 19, 2022. She has a spatulate bow and a distinctive "chistera" shape to better control the boat's power in a wide range of wind and waves.
GUYOT environment âeuros Team Europe - France - Germany
GUYOT environment âeuros Team Europe is a unique campaign launched for The Ocean Race 2022-23 that builds on the winning Franco-German collaboration of Offshore Team Germany in The Ocean Race Europe 2021. The team's philosophy is to bring together sailors from different backgrounds and merge their skills to build a strong global unit.
Benjamin Dutreux has once again partnered with Robert Stanjek olympic sailor of the German Offshore Team and world champion of the Star class, to the British Annie Lush olympic match racing sailor and two-time participant in The Ocean Race and the German Junior World Champion in the Finn class, Phillip Kasüske .
The newcomers are Sébastien Simon , navigator and strategic support on land around performance analysis and the Spanish Olympic gold medalist, Támara Echegoyen who is participating in his second edition of The Ocean Race after racing with MAPFRE in 2017-18.
For the media side, the French journalist Charles Drapeau will participate for the first time in The Ocean Race.
The IMOCA Guyot-Environnement
This is the first Hugo Boss, which finished second in the 2016-2017 edition of the Vendée Globe and stood out in the 2018 Route du Rhum, in the hands of Alex Thomson. The boat was fitted with a new pair of foils, before being picked up by the 11th Hour Racing team, pending the launch of its new IMOCA Malama.
Biotherm Racing- France
Paul Meilhat has opted for an international mix of experience and skills to compose the crew of its first challenge for The Ocean Race. The team includes:
Damien Seguin a three-time Paralympic medalist, winner of the 2017 Tour de France à la Voile and 7th in the 202 Vendée Globe, who will be participating in his first edition of The Ocean Race.
The British skipper, Samantha Davies she has become well known in her adopted country, France, after having participated in three editions of the Vendée Globe single-handed and skippered the women's team Team SCA under the Swedish flag in The Ocean Race 2014-15.
Anthony Marchand former competitor in The Ocean Race 2014-2015 with MAPFRE, regularly on the podium of the Figaro circuit and co-skipper of Yves le Blévec on the Actual Ultim 3 in the Transat Jacques Vabre 2021.
The Biotherm skipper has also taken the gamble of "recruiting" up-and-coming talent like the Class40 sailor Amélie Grassi and the Portuguese sailor Mariana Lobato the 2013 women's match racing world champion and winner of The Ocean Race Europe VO65 with Mirpuri Foundation Racing Team.
The team will have a rotation of three reporters on board: the professional photographer and experienced navigator Anne Beaugé , Ronan Gladu a photographer, videographer, author and surfer who has already sailed as a mediaman with several IMOCA and Ultim teams and the Chinese Minghao Zhang an experienced sports television producer who has already participated in 5 Summer Olympics and accumulated over 50,000 miles.
The IMOCA Biotherm
Biotherm is the last of the 5 boats in The Ocean Race to be launched. It was designed by the French naval architect Guillaume Verdier and built in Italy at Persico Marine. It comes from the same molds as LinkedOut built in 2020 by Thomas Ruyant but has a different scow bow and foils.
Team Holcim - PRB (Switzerland)
The skipper of the Holcim - PRB team, Kevin Escoffier the team has assembled a strong team for its third challenge in The Ocean Race, having raced with the Chinese-flagged Dongfeng Race team to a third place finish in 2014-15 and then winning the 2017-18 edition. The international team includes two British sailors, two French and one German.
The British Abby Ehler is the most experienced sailor in The Ocean Race, with participations: 2001-02 with Amer Sports Too, 2014-15 with Team SCA and 2017-18 with Team Brunel.
The British Sam Goodchild who joined the French ocean race in 2011, returns for her 2nd edition of The Ocean Race after having been a member of the Spanish team MAPFRE in 2014-2015. We will also find Tom Laperche a rising star in French ocean racing. After being chosen by François Gabart in 2021 as co-skipper aboard the Ultim SVR-Lazartigue for the Transat Jacques Vabre, he dominated the Figaro 2022 circuit and then won the much sought-after Solitaire du Figaro.
The German Susann Beucke is competing in her first edition of The Ocean Race. Along with teammate Tina Lutz, she won the European 49erFX title in 2017 and 2020 before winning silver medals at the 2020 Rio Olympics. After turning to offshore sailing, her goal is to become the first German to win the Solitaire du Figaro, before taking part in a Vendée Globe.
After starting his sailing career with six seasons of dinghy racing, Frenchman Fabien Delahaye moved on to the rigorous Figaro circuit where he raced from 2009 to 2014. He then used his experience as a springboard to professional ocean racing projects in the IMOCA class and in The Ocean Race, where he was part of the winning Dongfeng Race team in the 2017-2018 edition. He is back on the Figaro Bénéteau circuit since 2019 but also keeps a foot in IMOCA with Team MACSF.
The two reporters on board are Frenchman Julien Champolion, a photographer and videographer who has worked with many teams in the IMOCA and Multi50 classes over the past few years, and New Zealander Georgia Schofield, a former competitive windsurfer who has raced twice in the Youth World Championships in the RS:X class and has worked as a photographer/videographer for the past 12 years after starting to take photos while traveling for competitions.
It is a design originally created by French naval architect Guillaume Verdier for an unsuccessful Ocean Race campaign. With the opportunity to save time and money, the team purchased the partially completed 60-footer and moved it from Carrington Boats in England to its base in Lorient, France. After a number of significant modifications, including a scow-style bow, the boat was initially launched in May 2022.
