Apr 24, 2023
The fourth leg of The Ocean Race started on Sunday, April 23rd. But before that, on Friday, the In-race race was held in the port of Itajaí.
Due to light winds of no more than 10 knots, the IMOCA boats did not use the foils, but still raced the two-lap course.
The American team, led by Charlie Enright, took the lead from the start and finished in first place, earning the 11th Hour Racing Team 5 points.
The IMOCA boats did not use the foils because of the wind.
Second place with 4 points goes to Biotherm, in third position completing the podium, with 3 points Team Malizia and in the last two positions with 2 and 1 point are for Holcim-PRB and Guyot Environment respectively.
The start of Leg 4, which will be 5,500 nautical miles to Newport (Rhode Island, USA) was this Sunday afternoon. The 5 IMOCA yachts set off after fixing all the breakdowns that had occurred during the crossing to Brazil.
Due to a calculation error, two teams, the 11th Hour Racing Team and GUYOT Environnement-Team Europe were penalized for leaving early.
This allowed Team Biotherm to distance themselves and take the lead ahead of Team Malizia and Team Holcim PRB. The latter two were very close and focused most of their efforts on racing each other, which further increased the gap to the leader.
After this battle between Malizia and Holcim PRB, it was finally the latter who managed to get into second position, gaining a slight gap.
Third place currently goes to Malizia while the other two are further behind due to penalty.
In fourth place is the 11th Hour Racing Team and last is Guyot Environment.
While it is true that today they are all pretty evenly matched, it is likely that in the coming hours the lead will change and everything points to Holcim PRB, as Biotherm seems to have strayed and that could have meant the loss of the lead.
We will soon see how the crossing goes and we will keep you posted on Nautical Channel.