Malizia unchallenged
On Friday, May 26, 2023, only a few hours after Kevin Escoffier's crew, Boris Herrmann increased the number of miles on the counter: 641.13 miles covered in 24 hours. A fine birthday present for the German, who celebrated the following day. The hydrofoil IMOCA Team Malizia sets a new offshore monohull world record. Third in the rankings, Team Malizia was the last of the leading trio to start racking up the miles.
Before them, Kevin Escoffier and his crew had already covered 640.91 miles on the 5th leg of The Ocean Race, between Newport and Aarhus, in 24 hours. They beat the previous Maxi Comanche record held by Ken Read by 22 miles. The VPLP design held the old record by 618 miles.
It was a magical 36 hours for the top three IMOCAs, all of whom maintained a pace of over 605 miles, which surpassed the previous Ocean Race record of 602 nautical miles.
Adequate weather conditions
This record was the result of perfect conditions on this 5th leg. The fleet was sailing ahead of a weather front, downwind, on relatively flat seas in a 25-27 knot southerly breeze in the North Atlantic. 11th Hour Racing Team also passed the 595-mile mark on this leg.
Boats that could go even faster
If this is a huge feat, it is because this distance is equivalent to a trip between Paris and Alicante as the crow flies, as the IMOCA class explains. Guillaume Verdier, naval architect for Holcim-PRB, who also designed Comanche with VPLP, has no doubt that these boats can exceed 640 miles.
As he explains, these boats could be further improved and go even faster if the rules were changed: "They can already go very far with the current rule. But if the rule were to evolve a little more and offer more freedom, we could make them fly all the time. At the moment, it's still "effleurage", which is pretty good, but it's only 26 knots..."
