The international sailing team skippered by Boris Herrmann crossed the finish line of the Alicante In-Port race first, kicking off The Ocean Race on a high note.

After a hard month of refit, replacing damaged foils and getting the boat ready for The Ocean Race 2022-23, we are celebrating a strong win in the first inshore event of the race.

The team got off to a very slow start, in third place over the starting line and then dropping back into fourth place during the first few legs. As the fleet started to go upwind, Malizia – Seaexplorer’s higher angle allowed the crew to catch and eventually overtake the other competitors, leaving them in the lead at mark 4.

The crew managed to keep the lead by sailing cleanly, making the best use out of the boat’s brand new foils and pushing until the end.

“There can always be a good surprise”, said Boris Herrmann as he stepped off the boat this Sunday evening. “I’m super happy that we got wind to sail, I wasn’t sure if they would postpone the race but we got a good breeze. The boat felt good on its foils, the crew was really calm, working nicely together, we had fun today! I’m a happy sailor!”

The start of Leg 1 of The Ocean Race is next Sunday, on 15 January 2023, and will see the 5 IMOCA boats race to Mindelo, Cabo Verde. We will be sharing the adventure of the race across all their channels, and spreading their A Race We Must Win – Climate Action Now! message as they sail around the world, raising awareness amongst children about ocean protection and climate change through our My Ocean Challenge educational programme. We will run our onboard mini-laboratory, embarking on the race with the aim of collecting our second set of rare ocean CO2 data around the world.