The Ocean Race and SailGP are both prestigious sailing competitions, but they differ significantly in their format, boat type, and overall objectives. The Ocean Race is a fully crewed, round-the-world yacht race with stopovers in various ports, emphasizing endurance and offshore sailing. SailGP, on the other hand, is a high-speed, foiling catamaran racing league with short, intense races at one port for each event, focused on maximizing speed and technology. Think of SailGP like Formula 1. The Ocean Race is more like the Paris-Dakar rally.
Whereas SailGP is more about racing strategy, with sailing skills tested over a period of minutes, the Ocean Race is the world’s toughest round-the-world sailing race. It is a little less about teamwork and race-craft and more about the skipper’s ability to 1) read the weather and the charts and 2) choose a course that achieves maximum speed for days at a time. For the crew, it is a physical and mental endurance race. The skipper that 3) keeps his or her crew motivated and injury free, and who consistently chooses the best headings based on the data and conditions, most likely wins the race. Finally, 4) the skippers also need to know their boats, since each boat is slightly different. Getting maximum speed out of a boat is often an art form, and is a lot more about balance and feel than it is about math and science. In short, there is a lot for these guys to consider and these skills are built up over the course of a career. So, one would expect the older sailors to do better in these offshore races, on average, than the younger sailors do.
The next iteration of the Ocean Race starts tomorrow, Sunday August 10th, in Germany and finishes in Montenegro sometime next month. The race stops are: Leg 1: Kiel, Germany to Portsmouth, England (850 nautical miles). Leg 2: Portsmouth, England to Cartagena, Spain (1,400 nautical miles, via a fly-by in Porto, Portugal). Leg 3: Cartagena, Spain to Nice, France (650 nautical miles). Leg 4: Nice, France to Genova, Italy, with a Monaco fly-by (600 nautical miles). Leg 5: Genova, Italy to Boka Bay, Montenegro (1,000 nautical miles). You can follow the action from tomorrow onwards on the Discovery channel in the US and also there is a “virtual regatta” with live map locations and standings where one can keep a closer eye on the racers.
Thanks to modern technology like drones, video from the event will be broadcast worldwide, offering viewers unprecedented camera angles. Real-time video and audio feeds from the boats themselves will allow audiences to feel like they are part of the action, even with crews miles offshore. There will be at least one reporter on board every boat. Technology also significantly improves the safety of sailors, allowing them to take more chances, sail closer to the wind, and thereby push their boats to higher speeds for a more dramatic and entertaining competition.
This year's race will see a small fleet of seven sailboats start in the Baltic Sea, navigate through the North Sea and the English Channel, before entering the Atlantic Ocean. They will then pass through the Strait of Gibraltar into the Mediterranean Sea (Med), sailing past Portugal, Spain, France, Monaco, Italy, and Greece on the way to their final destination. The race will finish in Boka Bay, Montenegro, in the Adriatic Sea (part of the Med). While this isn't a traditional "around the world" race, it does cross several large seas, including much of the Baltic, North Sea, Atlantic, and the Med. This marks the first time the Ocean Race will compete in the Adriatic Sea itself, the body of water off the eastern coast of Italy, bordered by Croatia, Bosnia, and Montenegro.
Although the race is no longer called the Volvo Ocean Race, the Swedish Car company remains a primary sponsor. The event was formally known as the Volvo Ocean Race from 2001 to 2018 and, prior to that, was called the Whitbread Round the World Race starting in 1973. The name change occurred in 2018 when the Volvo Group transferred ownership of the race. Now known simply as the Ocean Race, Volvo continues to be a significant commercial partner, focusing on sustainability efforts. The decision to move away from a title sponsor model allows the event to build its own brand and potentially appeal to a broader range of partners and host cities in the future.
The chairman of the race, Swede Richard Brisius, recognized Volvo’s continued importance and relevance to the competition, in terms of their shared goal of cleaner oceans. He stated, "Our dream is a healthy Ocean, for the benefit of everyone." This vision is supported by the partnership with Volvo, which extends beyond 2030, with both organizations working together to restore and protect maritime ecosystems. This initiative is particularly important given the existence of "garbage patches" in every major ocean. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the largest, at around twice the size of Texas if you can believe it. It's estimated that up to 2.4 million tons of plastic enter the oceans each year, with more than half being less dense than water, meaning it remains afloat and accumulates in these patches. Once plastics enter these gyres, they do not leave, they just spin in circles with the rest of the plastic, for years, or for decades. Their concentration is expected to increase unless ocean pollution is reversed. Cleaning the ocean is a worthy cause, and is something we can all pursue, simply by eradicating the use of plastic products from our daily lives as far as possible.
This year's competition features seven boats, each with a small crew of sailors and onboard reporters. The fleet includes two teams from France and Switzerland, and one team each from Canada, Germany, and Italy. Notably, there is no team from the United States competing this year, even though the US-based 11th Hour Racing Team, led by Americans Charlie Enright and Mark Towill, won the Ocean Race in 2022-23. That was a historic victory, as it was the first time an American team had ever won the race in its 50-year history.
The Swiss teams competing this year are: The Team Holcim PRB boat will be skippered by an experienced Dutch sailor Rosalin Kuiper. She was still in her twenties just a few weeks ago and is the only female skipper in the race. She is young but she does have valuable Ocean Race experience. Team Amaala (co-sponsored by Saudi Arabia) is skippered by 32-year old Swiss sailor Alan Roura. The French teams are: Team Paprec Arkéa, skippered by 42-year old Frenchman Yoann Richomme, is known for his performance in the Vendée Globe and Ocean Race. Team Biotherm is skippered by Frenchman Paul Meilhat, 43 years old. Meilhat won the IMOCA class in the 2018 solo transatlantic Route du Rhum race and has been a regular competitor on the IMOCA circuit ever since, including in the Vendee.
Representing the other 3 countries: Canada Ocean Racing’s “Be Water Positive” is skippered by 54-year old Scott Shawyer, the first Canadian to complete the solo cross-Atlantic Vendee race. Interestingly, Scott is the least experienced sailor on board his boat for the Ocean Race. Germany’s Team Malizia boat is skippered by 44-year old German Boris Herrmann. Italy’s Allagrande Mapei Racing will be skippered by Ambrogio Beccaria of Milan, Italy, who is making his debut in the IMOCA class. At 33 years old he is on the younger side, but he has a degree in nautical engineering and started sailing almost 20 years ago, at the age of 14. Ambrogio is famous for being the first Italian sailor to win the Mini Transat solo transatlantic race. He has numerous other victories and was named Italian sailor of the year twice. Expect Ambrogio to bring youthful confidence to his new role as skipper in the Ocean Race.
These captains and their crews are not SailGP course racing specialists. Rather, they are professional sailors that focus on offshore long distance racing. And the boats used in the Ocean Race are different from SailGP's F50 foiling catamarans. The Ocean Race boats are single-hull sailboats, not dual-hull catamarans. But, the Ocean Race, like SailGP, does use hydrofoils on their boats. These foils are essentially underwater wings that lift a hull out of the water, which significantly reduces drag and allows the boats to travel much faster than traditional displacement hulls.
This year's Ocean Race will feature one of only two classes of sailboats used in these races. IMOCA 60s will have four sailors and one onboard reporter, and each crew must include at least one female sailor. VO65s, on the other hand, normally have ten sailors and one onboard reporter, with at least three female crew members and three sailors under the age of 30. The boats chosen for the 5-leg race starting in Germany tomorrow are the IMOCA 60s.
And these high-performance IMOCA 60 sailing yachts are impressive. They are built to a development class, allowing for some design freedoms, and are known for their advanced technology, including powerful canting keels and retractable foils. So, unlike the SailGP boats, the Ocean Race boats are not identical. IMOCA 60s are 60-foot carbon construction yachts, capable of traveling over 600 nautical miles in 24 hours. To put that in context. the Ocean Race Europe 2025 is a 4,500-nautical mile race, which is nearly a quarter of the distance around the world. At those high speeds expect there to be less than two weeks of actual sailing. The rest of the time the crews and boats will be at the transition ports. They will need the downtime, as these foiling yachts can reach maximum speeds around 40 knots in optimal conditions, which is extremely fast on water. By comparison, imagine driving a car 100 miles an hour for days on end, it would be thrilling but exhausting. These boats are certainly going to fly in their journey around Europe, so, expect some fireworks in the next few weeks.
Looking ahead, the 2026 Ocean Race is a "sprint" race, scheduled for next summer. It starts in New York City and finishes in Barcelona, Spain. The next "full" Ocean Race starts in January 2027. That will be a true around the world race. And, if they are still using foils, you can bet that even that far of a journey will take them less than 80 days.
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Author's note of August 12th: The 2025 race has now started and two teams, Team Holcim PRB and Allagrande MAPEI Racing, did not complete the start of Leg 1 and returned to port in Kiel, Germany. This was due to a collision shortly after the race began that happened in strong winds and resulted in damage to both boats. Fortunately, all crew members on both boats were reported safe after the collision. The two teams are now in port working to assess the damage and plan necessary repairs in the hopes of rejoining the race. Told you there were going to be fireworks..(!)
