Biotherm wins the Ocean Race Europe Leg 5— and the rest of it

Final rankings, racing highlights, and the inside scoop on the race's stopover in Genoa. Here's everything you need to know about the end of the Ocean Race Europe 2025.

Biotherm is the official victor of the Ocean Race Europe 2025.

The team crowned an impressive overall performance with yet another first place finish at the end of Leg 5, as well as a first place win in the Coastal Race held in Boka Bay, Montegnegro.

Throughout the seven week, 4,500 nautical mile race around Europe, Biotherm has maintained a consistent overall lead, winning the first, second, and third legs of the race and collecting Scoring Gate points in each instance.

The only mark in the team’s neat run is a third place finish in Leg 4, which was instead a homecoming victory for Italian sailor Ambrogio Beccaria’s Team Allagrande Mapei. After the dramatic collision with Team Holcim-PRB early in the race, for which they were not granted redress, Allagrande finished fifth overall.

In second and third place were Yoann Richomme‘s Paprec Arkéa and Rosalind Kuiper’s Team Holcim-PRB. Team Malizia came in fourth, with Canada Ocean Racing and Team Amaala bringing up the rear.

Biotherm skipper Paul Meilhat credits all-around collaboration between the shore teams and racing crew, as well as the boat’s preparation, for their triumphant victory.

“There are two parts of this victory,” he said, naming the organisation on shore and the boat’s preparation.

“Biotherm is more designed for this sort of race because it is really fast in transitions – light winds and flat water. We did a lot of improvements on the boat this winter. Also the crew, the motivation – I think we are all focused, we all concentrated, and we all wanted to win the race – that was the case from Kiel.”

How did the Ocean Race Europe end?

Final overall ranking of the Ocean Race Europe:

1. Biotherm – 55 points
2. Paprec Arkéa – 40 points
3. Team Holcim-PRB – 38.5 points
4. Team Malizia – 27 points
5. Allagrande Mapei Racing – 26 points
6. Be Water Positive – 18 points
7. Team Amaala – 9 points

The Ocean Race Europe Leg 5 at a glance:

• • Stopover events in Genoa highlighted the importance of ocean conservation, and how offshore racing can be a tool for environmental advocacy
  • The Ocean Race Europe Leg 5 started slow, with two days of light winds after the fleet left Genoa
  • Thunderstorms, lightning, and torrential rains hit on Day 3, with teams reaching foiling speeds of up to 34 knots
  • The fleet segmented off of Sicily, with five boats in the leading group sailing ahead of a stormy transition zone and two teams, Amaala and Canada Ocean Racing, trapped far behind
  • A momentary overtake from Holcim-PRB off of Sicily reshuffled the fleet order
  • Tactical gambles from Allagrande and Paprec Arkèa failed to pay off
  • Biotherm was first into Boka Bay, followed by Holcim-PRB
  • The Coastal Race in Boka Bay brought a fresh wave of excitement and gave teams a last-minute chance to rack up points before the race’s end

The Ocean Race Europe Stops in Genoa

The Ocean Race Europe fleet stopped in Genoa’s Porto Antico after an exciting finish to Leg 4, which saw leg winners Allagrande Mapei snatch first place after pulling ahead of Paprec Arkèa.

Allagrande and Genoa’s home-grown skipper Ambrogio Beccaria were greeted by an outpouring of local support, with fans, family, and media alike flocking to the race village for photos, pit lane tours, and speed tests in the Golfo Paradiso.

The stopover was also a launch pad for another Italian sailor’s upcoming endeavours.

Double olympian and Women’s America’s Cup sailor Francesca Clapcich, who also won the 2022-23 Ocean Race with 11th Hour Racing, supported her bid for the 2028 Vendée Globe with a presentation at the local maritime museum. Following the Ocean Race Europe, she will take over Malizia from current skipper Boris Hermann.

Over four days, talks, screenings, and workshops from local activists, sponsors, and grassroots environmental groups highlighted the Ocean Race Europe’s guiding theme of sustainability. With both sailors and race officials advocating for ocean health in real time, and teams gathering valuable water samples offshore, the commitment to Racing for the Ocean was clear.

In a panel discussion following a special showing of David Attenborough’s Oceans, Holcim-PRB’s on board report Georgia Schofield stressed,

“We cannot keep sailing, keep enjoying the sea, without protecting our playground.”

Head to our socials for a behind-the-scenes look at the events and the action, including an exclusive cockpit tour with Team Malizia!

Departure from Genoa for the end of the Ocean Race Europe

After the Genoa stopover, the Ocean Race Europe’s fleet of IMOCAs set off again for the race’s final leg, a 1,600 nm passage to Boka Bay, Montenegro that would take them down the volatile western side of Corsica and Sardinia, south of Sicily, and into the Adriatic Sea.

“It’s a long zig-zag of eight or nine days through the Med with a lot of curves and local effects and local winds – not a huge wind field but little patches here and there,” Boris Hermann explained.

Leg 4 winner Ambrogio Beccaria’s Allagrande Mapei Racing made an early running start off the coast of Ligury, but the whole fleet was soon subdued by breezes barely scraping five knots. They inched along at three to four knots of speed throughout the night. Not quite a nail-biter!

Thunder, lightning, and broaches (oh my!)

After a quiet start, the front of the fleet hit a low pressure weather system packing winds over 30 knots that sent them tearing downwind.

‘We were going so fast that we caught up to the thunderstorm and the clouds,’ said Yoann Richomme of Paprec Arkea.

Reports of broaching, loss of control, and footage of crew members getting jostled about abounded.

An involuntary gybe on Paprec Arkea caused damage to a headsail sheet, as well as ripping the radar unit off its bracket on the front of the mast, while Holcim-PRB ended up on its side.

The fleet was segmented by a thunderstorm line delineating two different weather regions.

Ahead of it, the first four boats in the fleet powered along in 30 knots of northwest wind.

Behind, cut off from the fresh downwind breeze, Holcim-PRB, Canada Ocean Racing, and Team Amaala were left chasing the fleet at half speed in just 12 knots of southeast.

An exciting overnight speed test saw Paprec and Allagrande fighting neck-and-neck in an exciting drag race.

“Both boats were doing 35 knots with maybe 100-metres of distance between us,” said Allagrande skipper Ambrogio Beccaria. “It was quite scary, unreal – one of the best sailing moments of my life for sure.”

Unstable conditions, thunderstorms aplenty, and frequent wind turns saw a reshuffling of the Leg 5 leaderboard as the Ocean Race Europe fleet came up on Sicily.

“You always need to be careful in these conditions – always one hand for the boat and the other for whatever it is you are doing,” warned Francesca Clapcich.

Holcim-PRB makes a comeback off Sicily

As they hit lighter winds under Sicily, Holcim-PRB made straight for the waypoint instead of tacking to the North like Allagrande, Biotherm, Malizia, and Paprec.

Skipper Rosalin Kuiper’s gamble quickly paid off– Holcim-PRB jumped from fifth to first place.

Biotherm retakes the lead towards Boka Bay

After rounding the final ‘India’ waypoint, the leading pack rearranged once again.

With Biotherm again in the lead, followed by Allagrande Mapei, Malizia, Paprec, and Team Holcim-PRB, the compressed fleet proceeded North upwind.

“These are good Biotherm conditions – flat water, medium wind – it’s perfect,” said Meilhat. “We have a lot of upwind now as we head to the North.”

Beccaria said he hoped instead for downwind conditions, hoping to pass closer to Italian shores. Allagrande eventually broke away from the rest of the front of the pack in search of more favourable conditions, but the gamble dropped them from third to fifth when the expected wind proved elusive.

Meanwhile, Canada Ocean Racing and Team Amaala crawled on at the back of the fleet.

To facilitate stopover activities in Boka Bay (and the expected Coastal Race), the Race Committee offered an alternative waypoint to give the two teams the option of shortening the race course, which meant the fleet trailers would trade an earlier arrival for the possibility of placing higher than sixth for the leg.

The Ocean Race Europe sails into the Adriatic sea

As the fleet entered the Adriatic, Biotherm was still at the front and covering their closest rivals tack for tack.

Paprec Arkèa gambled on an eastern route along the Albanian coastline with little success.

Not far behind, Holcim-PRB and Malizia jostled in an upwind match race, with sailors on both boats keeping a close eye on each other’s sail choice, boat speed, and angle.

While touring the boats during the stopover in Genoa, we learned that some teams like to keep their tricks up their sleeve, even changing or disguising their sail bags to keep their tactical choices a secret until the last moment!

The conditions required teams to stay on high alert to not lose their ground.

“You would think these are pretty steady, similar conditions, but it is not easy,” explained Holcim-PRB sailor Carolijn Brouwer. “The wind is up and down between nine and 12 knots. When we are sailing upwind when we get to 12 knots we are at the upper range of the big sail we have on – the J0. The wind is incredibly shifty – 20 to 25 degrees sometimes.

You really need to be precise and on top of it all the time, to react to the differences in pressure and the shifts in the breeze. That requires a fair bit of concentration and you have to be paying attention all the time.”

Biotherm wins final leg of the Ocean Race Europe

It hardly came as a surprise when Biotherm was first into Boka Bay, having completed the 1,600 nm leg in seven days, eight hours, 33 minutes, and 13 seconds.

Rosalin Kuiper’s Team Holcim-PRB took second place for Leg 5 after staging an impressive comeback to rejoin the leading pack. Third was Boris Herrmann’s Team Malizia; failed tactical experiments from Ambrogio Beccaria’s Allagrande Mapei and Yoann Richomme’s Paprec Arkea left them in fourth and fifth.

“It didn’t pay off,” Richomme commented. ‘But that’s racing sometimes.”

Nonetheless, Beccaria seemed satisfied with the sheer range of conditions teams faced during the Ocean Race Europe Leg 5.

“Leg 5 for us was a real Odyssey, a huge race where a lot of things happened. We had a lot of light wind and strong wind. All the way down to Corsica and Sardinia we had a lot of wind. On the way to Ustica we had a huge amount of wind and a super flat sea, so we were at 35 knots of steady boatspeed – it was unreal,” he commented.

The Ocean Race Europe’s Coastal Race in Boka Bay

A Coastal Race upon the fleet’s arrival in Boka Bay closed out the racing events and gave teams a chance to grab last-minute points for their overall ranking.

The results of the Coastal Race pretty closely matched the overall leaderboard, with the only difference being team Allagrande Mapei edging out team Be Water Positive overall thanks to their Leg 4 win.

Even in close quarters, Biotherm once again came first, followed by Paprec Arkea, Holcim-PRB, and Team Malizia.

The Boka Bay Coastal Race results:

1. Biotherm
2. Paprec Arkéa
3. Team Holcim PRB
4. Team Malizia
5. Be Water Positive
6. Allagrande Mapei Racing
7. Team Amaala

What’s next for the Ocean Race?

While the teams rest, reshuffle, and recover after their 7-week sprint around Europe, the Ocean Race events group is busy planning the upcoming calendar.

In November, The Ocean Race Summit Youth in Genova will explore how sport can be a platform for environmental change, and a tool to help build a more sustainable future for our world’s oceans.

In 2026, the first Ocean Race Atlantic will connect New York and Barcelona with a 3,200 nautical mile sprint. It will be the first point-to-point race in the 50-plus year history of The Ocean Race. Like the Ocean Race Europe, the event will feature mixed crews, though this time with a industry-first 50-50 gender split, as well as a focus on ocean conservation advocacy.

In 2027, the 15th edition of the iconic round-the-world Ocean Race will set off from Alicante, Spain.

“The Ocean Race is always on,” says Race Chairman of The Ocean Race Richard Brisius. “Our drive to protect and restore ocean health is a daily mission […] These events serve as inspirational touch points on the journey where we all get together with renewed focus and determination as we connect with the ocean.”

If you enjoyed this article on the Ocean Race Europe 2025…

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