Paul Meilhat: "The Ocean Race Europe is one I'd love to win"
by Ed Gorman / IMOCA Globe Series 10 Aug 08:25 BST
10 August - 21 September 2025
The Ocean Race Europe © Lorenzo Sironi / Ambrogio Beccaria
The French IMOCA skipper Paul Meilhat wears his heart on his sleeve and he is making no secret of the fact that he loves The Ocean Race Europe format and would dearly love to win it.
The skipper of Biotherm who finished fifth in the last Vendée Globe, is one of seven team leaders contesting the second edition of the fully-crewed grand prix which starts from Kiel in Germany on Sunday.
For Meilhat the five-stage sprint around Europe, which visits the UK, Portugal, Spain, France and Italy, and finishes at Boka Bay in Montenegro in mid-September, will be his first return to IMOCA racing since the Vendée Globe and he can't wait to get going.
"I wanted to do this race last time when it was first staged in 2021, but it didn't happen and I was frustrated," he told the Class during a break from pre-start team meetings at the race village in Kiel. "But I love this kind of race," he added.
Meilhat says the interesting thing about The Ocean Race Europe is that while it may not have attracted the biggest fleet compared to some recent IMOCA races, the crews involved include some of the best offshore ocean racing sailors in the sport.
"This is a good race for our crew," said Meilhat, who will sail the first leg to Portsmouth alongside Amélie Grassi of France, the Australian-British sailor Jack Bouttell and the British soloist Sam Goodchild. "That's true for our crew, but it's also true for most of the teams on the startline, because crewed races in IMOCA are attracting all the best sailors from France and around the world."
Meilhat believes his blue boat - a much-optimised lightweight flyer designed by Guillaume Verdier and launched in 2022 - can compete at the front of the fleet in a race that will see plenty of upwind sections and periods of light airs, especially in the Mediterranean.
"Biotherm is a really good boat for The Ocean Race Europe because it is a good boat in wind transition, so that is a strong point for us," he said. "And it is good upwind too, so it means we are pretty happy to say the podium is an objective for us and if we can achieve first place, then we will go for it."
But the Biotherm crew is up against other strong claims to the top-three positions overall, not least from the teams led by Yoann Richomme on Paprec Arkéa, by Ambrogio Beccaria on Allagrande Mapei Racing, by Rosie Kuiper on Holcim-PRB and by Boris Herrmann and his crew on Team Malizia.
For the Team Malizia co-skipper Will Harris - one of four Brits in the race - The Ocean Race Europe is unfinished business, having come third last time out on AkzoNobel in the VO65 Class which is not contesting the race this time.
Harris says success on this 4,500-nautical mile course, that includes a "fly-by" pitstop at Matosinhos in Portugal, plus stopovers at Cartagena, Nice and Genoa, is going to be all about consistency and not allowing morale to drop when things do not go to plan.
"Each leg is going to be pretty emotional," he said. "You can have a terrible start or a really good one, but we are sailing in the European summer and there are going to be lots of elements that can be really up and down, and luck can go your way at times. So you've got to try to keep a level head and if you can finish in the top few in each leg, then I definitely think you can fight for the overall win."
Harris, who will sail with Herrmann on the first leg, alongside Cole Brauer of the USA and Justine Mettraux of Switzerland - two of 12 women taking part in this race - says that although his boat was built for big conditions in the Southern Ocean, the team has learnt to sail it fast in light winds. And, he says, the boat's big cockpit is proving a bonus.
"We are so manoeuvrable because of that extra space, being able to use the full crew in every manoeuvre. That gives us a bit of an advantage because when the wind does get up, you end up manoeuvring a lot more because there are so many corners in this race," he explained.
We asked Harris who he regards as a major threat in this race. He chose Rosie Kuiper's squad on Holcim-PRB which includes that team's sometime skipper Nico Lunven, plus the French superstar Franck Cammas, the British sailor Alan Roberts and the hugely experienced Dutch Ocean Race specialist Carolijn Brouwer.
"They are a pretty strong team," said Harris. "They've got some very good talent there, really high level sailors. They are probably also the most trained team in terms of having sailed together and prepared for this race."
Both Meilhat and Harris believe the new Bonus Scoring Gates, that feature in the early stages of four of the five legs - with the first two boats through collecting two and one point respectively - could have a big influence on the final outcome of what is expected to be a tightly-fought contest.
"On the first leg the scoring gate is just a few miles after the start at Kiel Lighthouse, so it's going to be interesting," said Harris. "There are a lot of points up for grabs with the Bonus Gates, so you've got to be pushing hard from the start."
Meilhat has no doubt that the first leg to Portsmouth is going to be a huge challenge, even if it looks likely to be sailed in moderate or light winds with periods of reaching and upwind. That's because of all the obstacles on the course, among them wind farms, commercial shipping, sandbanks and exclusion zones.
"It's the most complicated of the race, so it's really hard because it's the first one, so you don't have time to prepare," said Meilhat.
Harris agrees. He said his crew has in-putted about 300 waypoints into their navigation software to be ready for all the challenges ahead. "We'll have to wait until the end of the race to see if it's the most stressful or difficult, but definitely in terms of navigation, it's the hardest leg to prepare," he said.
The 31-year-old Englishman said exiting the Baltic Sea is always a challenge but one that Team Malizia has tackled before in The Ocean Race. And he says the first leg will be dominated by meteorological high pressure.
"We are probably going to see a lot of upwind and relatively medium-to-light breeze. Initially, it's going to be about boatspeed and it looks like a reach out of the Baltic Sea, and then upwind, and then back to reaching again. In the Dover Strait, I am sure the fleet will end up compressing and it will probably be a beat or a gybe down the Channel," Harris said.
The Ocean Race Europe forms a major plank of this year's IMOCA Globe Series Championship which ranks skippers in the Class across all the races that take place in any season. The Ocean Race Europe is a Grade 2 race with the winning skippers of each leg earning 40 points. At the end of the race they will add their total points score across all five legs to their championship total.
After The Ocean Race Europe, the remaining elements of this year's championship are the Défi Azimut 48 Hours in mid-September, and then the season-ending Transat Café L'OR which starts on October 26th. Check the current ranking here.