A bang at the Ocean Race
Skipper throws down, his team is silent
06/04/2023 12:13 p.m
The crew of the Holcim-PRB has to do without Kevin Escoffier in the final of the Ocean Race. The skipper declares his resignation before the next start on Sunday. Nothing is known about the reasons. The team do not comment on the Frenchman’s decision.
The Ocean Race fleet will start the Aarhus harbor race on Sunday without Holcim PRB skipper Kevin Escoffier. The 43-year-old Frenchman from Lamor-Plage near Lorient resigned from his post in the Swiss team on Saturday evening. Escoffier himself announced this in a post on the Instagram social media platform.
In his message, Escoffier wrote: “I have decided to step down from my duties as skipper of Team Holcim-PRB until the end of this edition of The Ocean Race. I admire the dedication and quality of work of this great team that I have supported since the beginning of the… had the honor of leading the race.”
The team did not comment on the decision, instead announcing the crew for the harbor race. Escoffier is missing from the line-up. The fleet of Imoca yachts will start the port race at 2.15pm on Sunday before the sixth of seven stages begins on June 8th. The shortest section, at 800 nautical miles, will take the circumnavigators from Aarhus via fly-by in Kiel on June 9th to The Hague. Boris Herrmann’s Team Malizia is in third place with 24 points before the last two stages behind 11th Hour Racing (28 points) and Team Holcim-PRB (27 points). The race ends after the seventh and final stage in Genoa.
Team Guyot creates a small miracle
Meanwhile, Team Guyot is about to make a comeback after a series of failures. The team around skipper Ben Dutreux and the Berlin co-skipper Robert Stanjek had to give up a stage for the second time after their mast broke on the night of May 8th in the Atlantic. The final end of the circumnavigation threatened.
After a great effort and with the support of other ocean race teams, the race management and experts from the German regatta scene, the end of the repairs is in sight in time for the start of the sixth stage. At the Knierim Yachtbau shipyard in Kiel, around 800 hours of work are currently going into the black yacht before it is set into the Kiel Canal on the evening of June 5th with a replacement mast by the US team 11th Hour Racing and is launched on June 6th. Sailing to Aarhus in June.
Although the team can no longer intervene in the fight for the podium places, team manager Jens Kuphal said: “We couldn’t finish the race like this and are very grateful for the experienced support.” Kuphal explained: “At that time I campaigned for the turning point in front of Kiel. It can’t be that the others drive around there and we don’t.”