The Ocean Race 2022-23: 11th Hour Racing Team set new record, before Team Holcim-PRB beat it just hours later
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Updated 11/03/2023 at 12:12 GMT
For the second week-running 11th Hour Racing Team surpassed the official 24-hour distance record for a fully-crewed IMOCA boat with a stunning 583.36 nautical miles covered from Friday morning into the early hours of Saturday. It moved the crew from fourth to third as the pack continue to close on leg three, with Team Holcim-PRB’s lead slowly, but surely, decreasing with each passing day.
Highlights: All the best action from Leg 3 of The Ocean Race 2022-23
As the crews went past the one-third mark of the third leg of The Ocean Race from Cape Town to Itajai, 11th Hour Racing Team set a new record for the event, only for it to be beaten by Team Holcim-PRB.
In excellent conditions throughout Friday and Saturday morning, Holcim-PRB completed 586.4 nautical miles (subject to ratification), which is a new record for a distance covered in 24 hours by an IMOCA boat.
Just hours before, it was announced 11th Hour Racing had the record when they did 586.36nm, so they lost out by the smallest of margins.
The previous official record (ratified by the World Speed Sailing Record Council - WSSRC) was 539.71nm set by Alex Thomson's crew in 2018.
Just last week, 11th Hour Racing broke the mark by travelling 544.63nm, but the IMOCA website lists the crew of Charal, who did 558 nautical miles in a 24 hour period but that has yet to be ratified by the World Speed Sailing Record Council, so there is slight confusion over what the current record was.
Nevertheless, Holcim-PRB seem to have beaten all previous distances and skipper Charlie Enright was confident the record would be broken again, after last week's 544.63nm mark.
"The record will probably fall to someone, perhaps even us again, later in this leg,” said Enright. “It’s an indelible mark that will live in history forever, however, records are meant to be broken."
11th Hour Racing Team overtook Team Malizia overnight from Friday into Saturday to move into third, as they continue to close the gap on Team Holcim-PRB.
Holcim-PRB have led this leg from the very start back in Cape Town, up to now, and built a lead of around 600 nautical miles a week ago.
However, Biotherm, who are second, 11th Hour Racing and Malizia have taken a different route through the Southern Ocean which has seen them close the gap.
On Thursday, Holcim-PRB skipper Kevin Escoffier said: “We don’t look behind. We don’t change the way we do things. We knew they would lose time at some point.”
The four crews went past the one-third distance mark of the history-making third leg, which is the longest in The Ocean Race’s history at 12,750nm, on Saturday morning.
At 08:00 GMT, Holcim-PRB had a lead of 131nm to Biotherm, with 11th Hour Racing a further nine nautical miles behind and Malizia another five nautical miles further adrift.
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