Paul Meilhat’s French-flagged IMOCA Biotherm has won the fifth and final stage of The Ocean Race Europe – the 1,600-nautical mile leg from Genova, Italy to Boka Bay in Montenegro – and in doing so has confirmed a spectacular overall win in the five-week, 4,500-nm race around Europe.
Biotherm crossed the finish line in Boka Bay at 21:13:33 local time after completing the course in seven days, eight hours, 33 minutes, and 13 seconds to collect seven points in the overall standings.
Having won the first, second, and third legs – along with the maximum bonus Scoring Gate points – and finished third in Leg 4, the French entry’s overall tally of 48 points is an unassailable lead, making Meilhat’s crew The Ocean Race Europe 2025 champions.
Biotherm were always amongst the leading pack since the seven boat fleet left Genova on Sunday September 7 on what proved to be a complex and challenging route that took the yachts down the western side of Corsica and Sardinia, and south of Sicily before turning north to enter the Adriatic Sea on the way to Boka Bay.
After a painfully slow first two ultra-light wind days that saw the fleet make little headway to the south as the crews hugged the Italian and French coasts in search of thermal breeze, later in the leg the sailors had to deal with almost non-stop thunderstorms bringing torrential rain and spectacular lightning shows, as well as enjoying some super-fast foiling sailing at speeds up to 34 knots.
Meanwhile there was bad news for sixth and seventh placed Canada Ocean Racing – Be Water Positive, skippered on this leg by Pip Hare (GBR) and Alan Roura’s Team AMAALA (SUI/KSA) who got trapped in a thundery transition zone that saw them miss out on the strong downwind conditions that the leading group were enjoying.
Biotherm led around the penultimate turning mark after passing Sicily and from then on played a smart tactical game which saw them try to cover their closest rivals tack for tack in the predominantly upwind conditions.
Despite Yoann Richomme’s Paprec Arkéa (FRA) breaking away to the east over the final 24-hours to hug the Albanian coast trying to find something to help them overtake, Meilhat and his crew – co-skipper Amélie Grassi (FRA), Benjamin Ferré (FRA), and Carlos Manera (ESP) stuck resolutely to their game plan and went on to close out the leg and the overall race in style.
After stepping ashore Meilhat said he had not yet had time to process the victory, but was quick to praise his crew and the entire team backing them up ashore.
“I’m just happy to share [the victory] first with the crew,” he said. “The finish line is two hours from here so we had time to celebrate together. Now here we celebrate with the shore team. That’s really important, because there are two parts of this victory: the organisation on shore was crazy, the boat preparation was crazy, we didn’t break anything in over a month and a half, so it is much easier to get the boat’s best performance.”
Meilhat said the heart of the Biotherm team had been formed during the round-the-world edition of The Ocean Race in 2022-23.
“We got [lots of] knowledge and learning, because this Ocean Race [around the] world was not easy for us – we had many issues, but we learned and now we have a lot of skills in the team.”
Asked to sum up the reasons for the victory, Meilhat stressed the importance the team had placed on The Ocean Race Europe this year.
“[It] has been a really important goal for at least a year – so since before the start of the Vendée Globe we were preparing for this race. I think it is really important to be really focused and this year The Ocean Race Europe was our only goal.”
Beyond that the French skipper said the European victory had not been down to just one factor, but rather a varied combination of factors.
“It’s the addition of many different points: the shore team, technical stuff on the boat,” he said. “It shows that 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.”
Biotherm co-skipper Grassi said the team had really enjoyed the last leg, but admitted that the chances of claiming their fourth leg win had at times seemed uncertain.
“I can’t believe we won the last one,” she said. “That’s a great achievement and I am really proud of the whole team. We wanted to win the race but the plan wasn’t to win that many legs. I am really, really happy for the team. I am proud of us and proud of the shore team as well.”
With Biotherm navigator Sam Goodchild (GBR) not on board for the final leg, it was Grassi who stepped into the navigation role.
“I was working closely with Paul but it was a big responsibility,” she said. “I think I have managed it pretty well, but also because I have been working with Sam before, so I had a good example to do the same. I think we made good choices on all of the legs, not too much risk but sometimes just enough to be in front of the other boats.”
Next into Boka Bay was Rosalin Kuiper’s Swiss entry Team Holcim – PRB who finished at 23:32:13 after staging a spectacular comeback in the latter stages of the race when they pulled back over 100 nm in 24 hours on the passage south of Sicily to put themselves back in contention with the leading pack of four teams.
“We are super happy to end up here in second place,” said Kuiper. “A massive comeback: we were 150 miles behind but managed to catch up. There was a light wind transition zone where the fleet parked and we were able to sail downwind and park in the same spot. From there it was a restart of the game, so we are very happy with this result and we couldn’t wish for more.”
The Swiss team had to fight off a fierce challenge over the final 48 hours from Boris Herrmann’s Team Malizia (GER) who took third after crossing the finish line outside Boka Bay at 01:26:09.
“It’s an amazing achievement for the team to be here so we are really happy to finish this final leg in third place,” said Team Malizia navigator Will Harris (GBR). “It was an incredibly tough leg with so many different elements to it. Very emotional: moments of strong highs when we were catching up loads of miles – and really big lows when we were losing loads of miles. I think we can be proud of ourselves to have come away with third in this last one in something that is not typically our conditions – it was light winds for quite a lot of it.”
“We had so many different challenges: leaving Genoa with [light] winds that were totally unpredictable along the coast, and then ending up to the west of Sardinia with up to 38 knots at times. That’s a lot of wind for these boats, but with a lot of squalls and big waves it was the conditions we like and it was nice to be going faster than Biotherm in conditions that suited us after they had really been dominating the race.”
Fourth into Boka Bay at 03:25:37 was Ambrogio Beccaria’s Allagrande Mapei who led the fleet for prolonged periods during the race and particularly revelled in the windy downwind sections, but ultimately lost out when a breakaway move in the final 48 hours saw them slowed by lighter winds close to the Italian coast.
“Leg 5 for us was a real odyssey,” said Beccaria. “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.”
Fifth home at 04:06:45 was Paprec Arkéa who had also been a frontrunner for much of the race until the Albanian gamble failed to pay off over the final 24 hours.
“We took an option to sail to the east of the others, along the coast of Albania,” explained skipper Yoann Richomme. “We thought Allagrande was probably too far behind to come back on us, but we were wrong and it didn’t pay off. But that’s racing sometimes.”
The leg five result sees the French team hold on to second place overall, albeit by just half a point from Team Holcim – PRB in third, with just Saturday’s final points-scoring coastal race left to decide the final podium order.
“We are now within half a point of Paprec Arkéa,” said Kuiper. “That means that whoever is ahead between the two boats will be second on the overall scoreboard. So a very important day for us on Saturday, but now we celebrate our second position here and tomorrow we start to focus on Saturday.”
Two teams are still racing towards Boka Bay, with Canada Ocean Racing – Be Water Possitive and Team Amaala locked in a battle for sixth place. They are expected to finish on Tuesday.
