Hometown heroes on Allagrande Mapei Racing fighting for the lead

After more than 400 nautical miles of tightly contested racing on Leg 4 of The Ocean Race Europe 2025, only a handful of miles separated the top four teams at midday today as the leading group pick their way across the Gulf of Genova in light wind conditions.

At 1400 CEST it was the local favourite, Allagrande Mapei Racing – skippered by Ambrogio Beccaria (ITA) in a close, hard-fought battle with the two French entries: Team Paprec Arkéa – skippered by Yoann Richomme (FRA) – and the overall race leader Biotherm – skippered by Paul Meilhat (FRA), as well as the Swiss-flagged Team Holcim-PRB.

For a while, it looked like Holcim-PRB – skippered on this leg by Nico Lunven (FRA) – would lead after making a break to the south on the way to a waypoint off Alassio on the western side of the bay. But on the final approach to the waypoint, Allagrande Mapei appeared in a strong position to lead the quartet of leaders around the virtual mark.

With winds no stronger than 10 knots, the state-of-the-art foiling IMOCA yachts are making painful progress on the final section of the fourth leg from Nice, France, which will see the crews race three quarters of the way back across the Gulf of Genova to a final waypoint before turning north towards the finish line in Genova.

Yesterday evening Holcim - PRB led the fleet through the Strait of Bonifacio with Paprec Arkéa, Bilotherm, and Allagrande Mapei in hot pursuit. After the light winds the crews had experienced on the western side of Corsica, the winds funneling between the islands of Corsica in the north and Sardinia in the south required the sailors to switch to a new mode – changing from the gigantic Code Zero headsails to smaller J3s as the IMOCAs accelerated in the new breeze.

“In the Bonifacio Strait the wind increased because of the funneling effect between Corsica on our port side and Sardinia on our starboard side,” said Holcim - PRB skipper Lunven. “These islands are very high – especially Corsica – between 2,000 and 2,500 metres. It is a narrow passage between the two so the wind accelerates a lot. So we came from five knots to nearly 30 knots max wind speed. But 30 knots for Bonifacio is an easy day – it could have been way worse.”

Meanwhile a lighter wind passage through the strait for the remaining three teams – Boris Herrmann’s Team Malizia (GER), Scott Shawyer’s Canada Ocean Racing – Be Water Positive, and Alan Roura’s Team AMAALA (SUI/KSA) – saw the trailing trio lose valuable miles to the leading group.

At midday today, fifth-placed Team Malizia was around 50 nautical miles behind fourth-placed Paprec Arkéa.

As the fleet powered north yesterday in a solid southerly breeze that saw the boats flying at over 20 knots, after passing the island of Elba off the Tuscan coast it was Allagrande Mapei that was fastest, with the Italian yacht taking the leg lead, despite dealing with a power issue on board that saw them sailing without instruments for an hour.

Keen to realise his dream of a home team victory in Genova, Beccaria had his fingers crossed for more wind ahead to prolong the foiling conditions that clearly suit the Allagrande Mapei yacht.

“We are going fast,” he said from his seat at the navigation station as the Italian boat entered the gulf. “We have a little bit more than 24 hours [to go] and we have done more than half of the route. It’s been wonderful – [passing] northern Sardinia and Bonifacio was amazing – and now we are going towards the Tuscan archipelago and then the first waypoint near La Spezzia. We are expecting some more wind than we have now. We have this low pressure just ahead and I hope it gets stronger so we can fly.”

Leg 4 has once again offered up few opportunities for the sailors to get any meaningful sleep so far, and with the top four teams expected to continue to battle closely for the podium positions the prospects for shuteye before the finish remain bleak as this fourth stage comes to a tense conclusion.

Biotherm’s Benjamin Ferré (FRA) summed up the challenge facing the sailors across the fleet as they try to make sense of the light and unpredictable conditions.

“Nobody knows what’s going to happen,” he said. “We study the Meteo and try to understand what will happen, but in the end it is totally different. So we just have to adapt, keep moving, keep focused, and try to go as fast as possible in the right direction.”

The latest ETA projections have the leaders arriving overnight, as early as 0200 CEST. Updates can be found on www.theoceanrace.com 

Live coverage of the finish will be available in Europe on Warner Bros. Discovery streaming platforms like HBO Max and Discovery+ depending on the country.