The inaugural edition of The Ocean Race Atlantic got underway Wednesday from a virtual start line some 150 nautical miles offshore from New York.
The six international IMOCA crews gathered after a speed-restricted overnight transit past a local marine mammal protection area.
At start time the fleet powered off the virtual line under cloudy skies, heading into a bumpy 0.8-metre sea and a solid 17-18 knots of north-easterly wind that saw the 60-foot yachts head south-eastward at between 15 and 18 knots.
Team Malizia led across the line, with the full fleet following close behind – all had started racing within 30-seconds of the gun.
The sailors’ focus is likely to be on how best to hook into an east-moving low pressure system that is setting up to the north of the fleet and could take the yachts at high speed almost all the way across the Atlantic.
Ahead of the six competing teams is a high-speed 3,000-nautical-mile transatlantic passage to Lorient, France.
The Teams– each made up of two men and two women (plus an onboard reporter):
- United by the Ocean (FRA) of Paul Meilhat (FRA) and Mariana Lobato (POR)
- Team Malizia (GER) skippered by German Boris Herrmann
- Team Francesca Clapcich (ITA) Powered by 11th Hour Racing (USA)
- Embrace the Challenge (SUI) skippered by Swiss sailor Oliver Heer
- DMG MORI Sailing Team (JPN) skippered by Japan’s Kojiro Shiraishi
- MSIG Europe (NZL) skippered by New Zealand’s Conrad Colman.