Rethink propels 11th Hour Racing Team

Back home in Brittany, the British-Australian sailor Jack Bouttell is feeling and sounding confident about his crew as 11th Hour Racing Team follows its victory in Leg 4 of The Ocean Race by setting the pace on the Leg 5 transat from USA to Denmark.

Bouttell is not in the least bit surprised to see the American-flagged boat skippered by Charlie Enright out in front on the fifth day of the 3,500-nautical mile stage. After sailing with the team for the first three legs with plans to re-join the crew for the final two legs from Denmark to the finish at Genova, he sees how they are carrying the momentum forward.

“We are confident, confident in the boat now – confident that we have speed in the conditions we know. And obviously Si-Fi (navigator Simon Fisher), Charlie (Enright) and Justine (Mettraux) know the boat pretty well now, and how to sail it, and Charlie (Dalin) knows these boats pretty well too.”

Talk to Bouttell and you realize that this team that started as many people’s pre-race favorites but then struggled in the first three legs, has changed its approach to a race that it prepared exclusively for.

After struggling through Leg 3, Brazil was a re-fresh moment when the team looked at every aspect of how it was operating and made improvements and changes in all areas. But the key shift was a psychological one, as Bouttell explained.

“We came into the race very much with the mindset of ‘this is our race to lose’,” he said. “We were the first boat entered and the most prepared and so on. We sailed conservatively and tried to play safe with the fleet in the early legs. In Brazil we shifted to saying ‘it’s our race to win’ with the idea to sail more aggressively, take more risks and push the boat harder.”

Another key change is the way Fisher is being used. Instead of having him rotating as part of a group of four on watch, he is now outside the main pattern.

“For the last part of the race we have had a bit of a re-think – changing up the watch system to let Si-Fi spend more time just on navigation and a bit less sailing the boat,” said Bouttell. “So for this leg and the last two we will have him floating a bit more and we are trying to rotate three instead of four.”

That makes the challenge all the harder for the other three on board, as they battle their way across the north Atlantic and then over the top of Scotland and on towards Denmark in this transatlantic double-pointer. The way the team is approaching it is to take nothing for granted in the early stages and then be ready to win from in front – or behind – at the death.

“The approach we had before the leg start – the game plan,” said Bouttell, “was for a busy couple of days at the beginning, then a tactical section that might be a bit easier on the body in the middle part. Then, if you get to Scotland first, don’t assume you’ve won the leg and, if you get there last, don’t assume you can’t win the leg.”

Checking in with Christian Dumard, the official meteorologist to The Ocean Race, and it is apparent why this is a good leg to have Fisher working harder on his tactics as he tries to outsmart Charles Caudrelier, his rival navigator on Holcim-PRB and Yann Eliès on Malizia. Dumard says the crews are facing an unusual Atlantic weather picture for this time of year, with a large area of high pressure in their way centered about 500 miles west of Galway.

It will be how the tacticians deal with this obstacle that is likely to heavily influence the outcome of the leg.

“Because the high pressure is not going to move much, they have to go around it to the north,” said Dumard. “The wind is bent around it and the shortest route is to go and gybe close to the center of the high. They have to find a good compromise between gybing too close to the center, because there is not much wind there, and doing a longer route and staying further away from the center.”

Dumard says the detail of how teams execute this will be very demanding for Fisher and his rivals and 11th Hour, as the leading boat, could easily lose or gain a lot as she comes under the influence of the high.

“From one weather model to the other, they do not have exactly the same positions for the high, so navigators have to update their strategy all the time,” he said. “It’s not like they can go to sleep for two days and leave it to sailing speed. They will have to adjust their course and their strategy and because of the differences between the models we don’t know exactly how far north they will end up going.”

However, he believes this could still be a relatively quick passage as the teams race over the top of the windless zone towards the top of the British Isles, where they could encounter strong northwesterly winds that will drive them on towards Denmark.

But not for the first time in The Ocean Race, the final stretch to Aarhus in the Kattegat could be a nail-biter.

“The crews could have very light winds once they get north of Denmark,” explained Dumard. “Anything could happen then. But that is still far away and that could change – they could still have quite strong northeasterly winds at that stage.”

The ETA in Aarhus is tentatively on May 30.

Leg Five Rankings at 18:00 UTC
1. 11th Hour Racing Team, distance to finish, 1630.2 nm
2. Holcim-PRB, distance to lead, 19.8 nm
3. Team Malizia, distance to lead, 83.1 nm
4. Biotherm, distance to lead, 274.7 nm
Did not start – GUYOT environnement

For the crew lists, click here.

Race details – Route – Tracker – Scoreboard – Content from the boats – YouTube

Overall Leaderboard (after 4 of 7 legs)
1. Team Holcim-PRB — 19 points
2. 11th Hour Racing Team — 18 points
3. Team Malizia — 18 points
4. Biotherm — 13 points
5. GUYOT environnement – Team Europe — 2 points

IMOCA: Name, Design, Skipper, Launch date
• Guyot Environnement – Team Europe (VPLP Verdier); Benjamin Dutreux (FRA)/Robert Stanjek (GER); September 1, 2015
• 11th Hour Racing Team (Guillaume Verdier); Charlie Enright (USA); August 24, 2021
• Holcim-PRB (Guillaume Verdier); Kevin Escoffier (FRA); May 8, 2022
• Team Malizia (VPLP); Boris Herrmann (GER); July 19, 2022
• Biotherm (Guillaume Verdier); Paul Meilhat (FRA); August 31 2022

The Ocean Race 2022-23 Race Schedule:
Alicante, Spain – Leg 1 (1900 nm) start: January 15, 2023
Cabo Verde – ETA: January 22; Leg 2 (4600 nm) start: January 25
Cape Town, South Africa – ETA: February 9; Leg 3 (12750 nm) start: February 26
Itajaí, Brazil – ETA: April 1; Leg 4 (5500 nm) start: April 23
Newport, RI, USA – ETA: May 10; Leg 5 (3500 nm) start: May 21
Aarhus, Denmark – ETA: May 30; Leg 6 (800 nm) start: June 8
Kiel, Germany (Fly-By) – June 9
The Hague, The Netherlands – ETA: June 11; Leg 7 (2200 nm) start: June 15
Genova, Italy – The Grand Finale – ETA: June 25, 2023; Final In-Port Race: July 1, 2023

The Ocean Race (formerly Volvo Ocean Race and Whitbread Round the World Race) was initially to be raced in two classes of boats: the high-performance, foiling, IMOCA 60 class and the one-design VO65 class which has been used for the last two editions of the race.

However, only the IMOCAs will be racing round the world while the VO65s will race in The Ocean Race VO65 Sprint which competes in Legs 1, 6, and 7 of The Ocean Race course.

Additionally, The Ocean Race also features the In-Port Series with races at seven of the course’s stopover cities around the world which allow local fans to get up close and personal to the teams as they battle it out around a short inshore course.

Although in-port races do not count towards a team’s overall points score, they do play an important part in the overall rankings as the In-Port Race Series standings are used to break any points ties that occur during the race around the world.

Held every three or four years since 1973, the 14th edition of The Ocean Race was originally planned for 2021-22 but was postponed one year due to the pandemic, with the first leg starting on January 15, 2023.

Source: Ed Gorman, IMOCA