From Baltic grey to Adriatic blue, seven IMOCAs chase glory

The route? Baltic chill to Adriatic charm, via the English Channel, Atlantic rollers, Gibraltar’s bottleneck and the sunburnt Med. Five offshore legs, one coastal dash, double points on the second leg, and just enough fly-bys, scoring gates and headlands to keep nav tables steaming and crews sleep-deprived.

The opener? Kiel to Portsmouth — a tight, technical first leg. Expect tide, traffic, and tactical hair-splitting before the fleet ties up in Cowes by Friday. Then it’s showtime: Leg Two — a double-pointer that kicks off on 17 August from the Royal Yacht Squadron line. This monster leg runs past Matosinhos (via a fly-by pitstop), down through Gibraltar and finishes in Cartagena. Legs to Nice and Genoa follow before the grandstand Adriatic finale.

And that final coastal race in Montenegro? Carries the same weight as a full offshore leg. If the scoreboard’s tight — and it will be — it could decide the whole thing.

The fleet is a who’s who of offshore grit:

Paprec Arkéa (Yoann Richomme)

Allagrande Mapei Racing (Ambrogio Beccaria)

Holcim-PRB (Rosalin Kuiper)

Biotherm (Paul Meilhat)

Team Malizia (Boris Herrmann) …plus two more that can’t be counted out.

These aren’t weekend warriors — they’re Vendée Globe veterans, Ocean Race winners, and serial podium finishers. The boats? Five of them are bleeding-edge foilers launched in 2022. Four raced in the last Ocean Race. And one — Canada Ocean Racing – Be Water Positive — is the reigning champion (you might know her better as 11th Hour Racing Malama).

What’s new this edition?

Bonus Scoring Gates — early in most legs (except Genoa to Boka), two points for first boat through, one for second.

Fly-by pitstops — the fleet will slow for exactly three hours in Matosinhos for crowd-pleasing, media-splashing stops before firing off again in staggered re-starts.

Ocean Life Parks — public shore action at each stopover. No more pandemic ghosts — it’s full fanfare this year.

Racing for the Ocean — with every boat kitted out to gather microplastic, salinity, and temperature data.

Phil Lawrence, Race Director, summed it up best: “It’s going to be intense. Short legs, big pressure. The boats are fast. The sailors are better. The points will be tight, and it might all come down to the very last sprint.”

And that’s just the sailing. Shore teams will leapfrog stopovers, pulling all-nighters to keep the machines flying. The sailors? Running on caffeine, grit, and routine. Foils will hum. Sheets will scream. And across five countries and two seas, a new champion will rise.

This isn’t a cruise — it’s The Ocean Race Europe. And it starts now.