The Ocean Race Europe: Meilhat takes the spoils in Portsmouth
by Ed Gorman / IMOCA Globe Series 14 Aug 18:52 BST
10 August - 21 September 2025
Team Biotherm, skippered by Paul Meilhat, winner of the Leg 1 of the Ocean Race Europe in Portsmouth, UK on August 14 © Vincent Curutchet / The Ocean Race Europe
Paul Meilhat and his crew on Biotherm celebrated victory in the first leg of The Ocean Race Europe today as they arrived in Portsmouth on the English south coast after an impressive pace-setting performance in a medium and lightwind stage from Kiel in Germany.
Meilhat, who finished fifth in the last Vendée Globe on board his Guillaume Verdier-designed foiler, looked tired but delighted to have scored a convincing opening win in this five-stage fully-crewed grand-prix that finishes at Boka Bay in Montenegro in mid-September.
But even in his moment of triumph the 43-year-old Frenchman warned that the second leg - the longest of the race, which starts on Sunday, and takes the fleet out into the Atlantic before finishing at Cartagena in Spain - would be a different challenge.
"This was the perfect leg for us," he said after docking at Portsmouth's Gunwharf Quays in bright morning sunshine. "The next one will be different. It will be more offshore racing so probably it will be harder to have this kind of lead. But yes, we don't give up and we will try to do our best."
Biotherm was quick off the mark in the early stages of this highly technical leg, and matched early leader Paprec Arkéa skippered by Yoann Richomme, before taking the initiative off the north coast of Denmark with Biotherm benefitting from superior upwind speed.
Meilhat then had his nerves tested as he and his crew remained out in front for the rest of a four-day leg that featured long upwind sections and phases of light winds in strong tidal currents and large exclusion zones. "But I was really happy because we went through many transitions upwind from east to west, and it was hard sometimes to be stopped and see the other guys coming back, but actually the distance was always about 15 miles so it was OK," he said.
Meilhat is supported in this race by a superb crew made up of the British-Australian Ocean Race veteran Jack Bouttell, the British Vendée Globe sailor Sam Goodchild and the French sailor Amélie Grassi. Bouttell said the crew had prepared a watch schedule before they left Kiel, but then never looked at it again, preferring an informal set-up onboard.
"Bascially, Sam was opposite Paul and I was opposite Amélie," he said. "I think between ourselves it was based more on feeling and how the other was doing. So there were times when one of us would cover for the other for a bit and we did that quite fluidly."
Bouttell reckons Biotherm is an ideal design for this race even if leg two might prove a tougher test. "The boat is really light, with a very simple and powerful hull shape. It accelerates quickly onto the foil and the foils are all-rounders, so it's quite easy to use them and they are quite forgiving," he said. "Compared to the rest of the fleet, if there is some strong downwind in heavy wind, I think we'll struggle a bit but the rest of the time - and upwind from light-to-strong - we seemed to be pretty strong and even reaching as well, so I was pretty happy," he added.
Just as happy as the leg winners were the crew of second-placed Team Malizia skippered by the German sailor Boris Herrmann. They got to the finish of an extended course, that saw the boats complete two laps between buoys off the east end of the Isle of Wight, just 10 minutes ahead of Richomme's Paprec Arkéa and just under two hours after Biotherm.
The key moment in the battle with Richomme came after Malizia had caught up a big deficit over 24 hours and then managed to sneak ahead under spinnaker and with the benefit of a favourable windshift in the final extra laps.
Herrmann was clearly delighted with that performance. "Yes, it was nice to see that we can come back and sometimes be a bit quicker," he said, beer in hand on the dock. "It was a really nice match the last 24 hours with lots of sailing inside, lots of tacking and crossing and stuff like that. It was like a proper inshore race really."
He believes his boat can be the fastest in the fleet in very light winds and Herrmann was also delighted with the way his crew - Will Harris of Britain, Cole Brauer of the USA and Justine Mettraux of Switzerland - worked together on this first test. "It was super-nice. We almost didn't need to speak, or speak much. Everyone knows really what they are doing, even if we hadn't sailed before together and it was the first time," he said.
When the course was extended in the final stages by the race director, Herrmann said that Harris was initially unhappy about the unexpected extra mileage. "We just had to deal with this," Herrmann said. "I told Will 'look, it's got to be fun - bright sunlight, home waters and great inshore racing.' And luckily, we had those laps because they allowed us to come back."
Richomme and his team looked rather grim-faced as they arrived at Gunwharf a few minutes after Herrmann's crew. The Paprec Arkéa skipper made no secret of the fact that they had made a mistake with their sail choice in the final exchanges with Malizia. "We were leading them round the last mark and we had an extension to do a few laps between two marks, and we messed up one of those legs," he said. "We chose the wrong sail and tactically we didn't manage it well, so that's the way it is. They had been putting pressure on us for at least 24 hours, so they were definitely sailing well and we were making too many mistakes anyway, so it's still a good result. It's still third. If that's our worst in this race, I'll be happy," he added.
Richomme says his boat is hard to sail fast upwind in light conditions and predicted that his team and that of Herrmann will end up fighting each other all the way round this 4,500-nautical mile race track. He has no doubt that Biotherm currently has a performance edge.
"We know that Biotherm is probably the boat to beat right now," he said.
The fourth-placed finisher was Scott Shawyer's crew on Canada Ocean Racing-Be Water Positive, who finished just over three hours after the leaders, with Alan Roura and his crew on Team Amaala on course to finish fifth.
Meanwhile, the two boats and their crews who were involved in a collision just after the start of this leg - Team Holcim-PRB and Allagrande MAPEI Racing - are both reported to be aiming to start the second leg after having completed repairs to their respective boats in Germany. Allagrande MAPEI Racing have said they are ready to leave for Portsmouth, while Team Holcim-PRB have reported good progress on their repair work.