The Ocean Race. 11th Hour wins the 4th leg in Newport, its home port!

11th Hour, skippered by Charlie Enright, won the 4th leg of The Ocean Race this evening in Newport. A victory, on home turf, that was eagerly awaited by the entire American team.

They did it! The great favourites of The Ocean Race, which they had raised to the rank of number one objective of their Imoca project, the Americans of 11th Hour, skippered by Charlie Enright, won the 4th leg of the crewed round the world race this evening, at around 8.45 pm in Newport. Based in the famous harbour on the East Coast of the United States, the 11th Hour team has finally won its first leg, and on home soil.

After 17 days of intense, hard-fought racing, 11th Hour was less than an hour ahead of Malizia, skippered by Will Harris in the absence of Boris Herrmann, and supported by Frenchmen Nicolas Lunven and Christopher Pratt. It was in the light winds, as they approached the American coast, that the Verdier design proved to be more agile than the VPLP design, which was more suited to strong downwind winds.

Charlie Enright probably also relied on his knowledge of the area and the currents to manage the landing in a port that he is familiar with.

Very close overall ranking

It should be noted that in order to build a winning project for this round the world race (already raced in the Imoca class), the 11th Hour team had their boat built at CDK in Port-la-Forêt, based on designs by Guillaume Verdier, and had based their team since 2020 in Concarneau at mer Concept, François Gabart’s racing team.

In the general ranking, 11th Hour has 18 points, as does Malizia, which is one point less than Holcim-PRB (Escoffier), which is still the leader despite its withdrawal on this leg. The counters are therefore almost back to zero before the 5th leg Newport-Aarhus (Denmark), where the points will count double.