Cape Horn, 27. March 2023 - The last days have proven eventful for Team Malizia, having just passed the infamous Cape Horn, which is a legendary southernmost tip of South America. For hundreds of years, this mythical place has haunted the imagination of many seafarers around the world. Renowned as the holy grail for racing sailors who still have many superstitions about passing this point, these include toasting Neptune and piercing the ear on the side you pass The Horn. This is the area of the world where Boris Herrmann’s favourite creature, the Albatross reigns as king and will no doubt have welcomed Team Malizia at this point. There is a lighthouse on the end of Cape Horn where a lonely light housekeeper and his family reside to maintain this warning signal.
On the crossing Team Malizia celebrated their first place after 29 days 4 hours and 8 minutes, this means that the team will receive the Roaring Forties Trophy which is the time from Cape of Good Hope to Cape Horn which they completed in 27 days 17 hours and 31 minutes. This award was won in the most recent years by some famous names including Charles Caudrelier, Ian Walker and Franck Cammas. This doesn’t give the team any points, but it has a lot of meaning within itself. The team have sailed 10,000nm to reach this point and still have some days to go to get to the end of leg 3 in Itajai which is nearly 2000nm away. For Will Harris, Rosalin Kuiper and Antoine Auriol this is their first time crossing the infamous landmark, for Nico Lunven and Boris they are not new to the point.
Boris Herrmann, skipper of Team Malizia, commented on his fifth passing of the cape, “Cape Horn holds many memories for me, and crossing this line in first almost means more than winning the leg, not in terms of points but in terms of what it means. I am proud of the team and this boat! The boat has really proved itself in the Southern Ocean and shown how tough she is.” Englishman Will Harris who will be the skipper for Leg 4 added “we are going to have a close race up to Itajai, Holcim are really pushing the boat and only 20nm behind us so we will have to work hard to finish this leg first!”
Rosalin Kuiper, the 27-year-old Dutch co-skipper who is currently recovering from a concussion sustained yesterday morning (link here for more info) commented “this is a cinematic hospital that I am sitting in watching the beautiful passing of Cape Horn – this wasn’t how I imagined passing Cape Horn, but I also couldn’t ask to better looked after – I am really grateful to the guys!”
Team Holcim-PRB are hot on the heels of Malizia as the duo have a significant lead on Biotherm and 11th Hour Racing who are around 250nm behind the front pair. The duo will battle it out in this new phase of the race. The coming hours will be interesting, as they sail NE past Cape Horn and back into the Atlantic Ocean a small but powerful low-pressure system is quickly developing in their path to the south of the Falkland Islands. By Tuesday morning around 0600 UTC, they will be in about 30+kts of wind from the south which will quickly build to a very strong 40+kts still from the SSW by around 1000 UTC as they hitch onto the back of this low pressure and make their way up towards Itajai.
The strong wind is relatively short lived as this low pressure makes its way SE into the Southern Ocean and they gybe onto the port side to head north towards the east of the Falklands. By 2000 UTC on the 28th the wind should have settled to the mid 20s and as the sea state allows for it, they will make quick progress north past the Falkland Islands.
By the 29th their conditions start to be driven by another small, but much less severe, low-pressure system as they make their way north. The GFS and ECMWF models don't agree very well for the timing and development of this small low pressure so it's hard to speculate now exactly their conditions. They should end up downwind for most of the day on the 30th but wind strengths vary from 25 to 45 kts depending on which weather model you want to believe. Therefore, this is yet to be certain.
Technical advisor Jesse Naimark states: “The current routing shows a morning arrival on the 2nd but with the lack of consistency in the weather models I imagine this is very optimistic and likely later on the 2nd or into the 3rd of April is a more realistic ETA.”
Press info: Team Malizia