Team Malizia found a way to grab a last-minute win in leg 7 of The Ocean Race, saving the best for last.
On the waters off the finish port of Genova, skipper Boris Herrmann and his crew boldly grabbed the leg lead in extremely light and variable conditions at 0600 UTC on Tuesday morning, by virtue of heading close to shore and picking up a gentle breeze by the land.
This allowed them to ease past Team Holcim-PRB, who had led for the majority of the leg from The Hague to Genova, as well as Biotherm, and win their second leg of The Ocean Race.
Following the finish of Malizia, the wind nearly died completely, leaving Paul Meilhat’s Biotherm and Benjamin Schwartz and his Holcim-PRB crew to play a very downspeed chess match to get to the finish line.
At the end, it was Biotherm who were able to glide across in second place on leg 7, leaving Team Holcim-PRB to claim third place, an unfortunate result after leading for so much of the leg.
The first VO65 boat to finish in Genova on Tuesday – just minutes ahead of Malizia – was Team JAJO, with skipper Jelmer van Beek sliding home just over 24 hours after WindWhisper Racing Team won the VO65 Sprint.
