Everything to gain for Holcim-PRB on this final leg
Benjamin Schwartz, Annemieke Bes, Ambrogio Beccaria, Yoann Richomme and Julien Champolion (onboard reporter) are about to set off for the seventh and final leg of The Ocean Race.
After five months of intense racing, the Holcim-PRB team is in ambush for second place overall. Two points separate them from the Americans of 11th Hour Racing Team. Over the 2,200 miles between The Hague in the Netherlands and Genoa in Italy, Holcim-PRB has everything to gain.
With 50% of his crew new compared to the previous leg, the skipper of the Swiss monohull Benjamin Schwartz is keeping a cool head and analyzing the situation pragmatically.
We know what we have to do so we will do everything to make it happen. But we know that not everything depends on us. Today, the pressure is more on the shoulders of the 11th Hour Racing Team. They've got a sword of Damocles hanging over their heads. All we have to do is sail well... And then rely on fate and the help of our rivals to come between us and the Americans.
The start is scheduled for this late afternoon at 6.10pm, and the fleet should leave The Hague in favorable wind conditions to ensure a magnificent show with some great action shots. Between 15 and 20 knots of wind are expected for the coastal course in front of the beach. The IMOCA boats will then set off downwind to the south of a high pressure system positioned fairly high over Europe, to sail down the North Sea and the English Channel. On board, they'll need to pay close attention in a zone where traffic is relatively dense. And during this first part of the race, the team members will be counting down their hours of sleep. We'll have to wait until we reach the Bay of Biscay to set up a real watch system. On their way, the monohulls will have to deal with a small stormy low-pressure system off the tip of Brittany, before reaching Cape Finisterre by progressing south of an Atlantic low-pressure system. The remainder of the race will be made up of Portuguese trade winds, before entering the Mediterranean and facing its uncertainties.
For Benjamin Schwartz, Annemieke Bes, Ambrogio Beccaria and Yoann Richomme, the challenge at the start of the race will be to stay ahead of the fleet after the Manche and approaching the low-pressure area in the Bay of Biscay in the lead. Once the downwind conditions have been reached, the fleet will settle into a race of speed. In the Mediterranean, sleep will once again be in short supply as they try to seize the slightest opportunity to make headway towards Genoa. Sail changes are sure to follow one another at the end of this race, which will spare neither the physical nor the mental strength of the athletes. For Benjamin Schwartz, the aim over the whole of this leg is to live up to all the work done by the whole team since the start in Alicante.
If we don't win, what counts is that we manage to do a great leg. We need to do it the right way: we need to sail well and push as hard as we can right up to the finish line in Genoa, so that we don't have any regrets. It would be the ultimate reward for all the hard work the team has put in over the last six months. We've got to get both the sailing and shore teams excited about this leg. We want her to be hooked to the tracker for the last 48 hours (laughs). The team has done exceptionally well so far in this race, and we're going to keep it up right to the end.
