IMOCASailing Articles
The leg from Cartagena to Nice has already shown the full character of the Med: punishing heat, teasing calms, and now, at last, a freshening breeze carrying the seven-strong IMOCA fleet north-west toward the French coast. By midday Thursday, speeds had climbed as the leading boats found themselves in reaching mode, bows pointed toward a waypoint off the Îles d’Hyères.
Neck-and-neck through the night If Biotherm hold the advantage now, it is only by the finest of margins after a knife-edge duel against Rosalin Kuiper’s Holcim-PRB along Mallorca’s spectacular coastline.
© Julien Champolion / The Ocean Race
From calms to chaos: the Med turns Leg 3 into a battle of sweat, speed, and survival
03-09-2025
It was the longest and most punishing stage of the event so far – 1,400 nautical miles from Portsmouth, down the English Channel, past Biscay, through Gibraltar and into the shifting breezes of the Mediterranean – yet Meilhat and his sailors managed the leg with a tactical poise that has now firmly stamped Biotherm as the benchmark team of this race.
The numbers tell their own story: 16 points collected in total on this leg alone.
01-09-2025
The Mediterranean has once again lived up to its trickster reputation, turning the charge to Cartagena into a drifting match. Only hours after blasting through Gibraltar at 30 knots, Paprec Arkéa were wallowing along at barely one – watching Biotherm and Holcim-PRB slip north and the chasing pack roar back into contention.
31-08-2025