To the Brink and Back

The Ocean Race's brutal third leg-nearly 13,000 miles of hard racing at full-tilt-produced epic stories of people and perseverance

- Ed Gorman

What we're talking about is The Ocean Race's monster of a stage through the southern Indian and Pacific. What was originally a solution to the impossible challenge of trying to organize a round-the-world race with stops through Asia in the time of COVID-19 may have manifested itself as a new classic course the new Everest peak for fully crewed ocean-racing teams, starting in Africa and ending in South America.

It was always going to be one hell of a challenge, this great distorting marathon sitting among six other standard-size Atlantic-based stages in the 50th anniversary edition of The Ocean Race, formerly the Volvo Ocean Race and the Whitbread. And it looked to have disaster written all over it because there were so many unknowns: Would the foil-assisted IMOCA 60s, with their delicate appendages and lightweight hulls, be able to cope with the violence of being pushed full-pelt for 35 days through the most inhospitable seas on the planet? How would their four-strong sailing crews survive in their spaceship-size capsules, on a platform with a ride quality ranging from uncomfortable to unbearable? And how would the race's credibility survive this challenge, with only five boats on the starting line under Cape Town's Table Mountain? What if three-or worse, none of them-failed to complete the course? This later concern weighed heavily on race organizers and fans alike.

In the end, we were treated to an epic sporting story too deep and expansive for this space. And it was one that proved that even if there were only four boats on the racecourse (Guyot Environnement-Team Europe dropped out with structural issues), if they are good boats, then it can be a compelling watch. And these were good boats sailed by some of the world's best solo and fully crewed yachtsmen and women.