The Barcelona World Race is something I have been watching for the last 95 days. Organised by Ellen MacArthur company OC Events, it has pitted the skills and strengths of 2 crew on IMOCA Open 60 monohulls, racing nonstop around the world, starting and ending in Barcelona.

I have been following the progress of Alex Thomson closely, he and his co-skipper Andrew Cape have had a strange race, firstly breaking the 24 hour speed record, which Alex held before, which now stands at 501nm, this is strange as the average wind strength on this 24 hours compared to the time before was 8-10 knots difference, also this is the first time Alex has been able to finish a Circumnavigation without serious gear failure since he did the Global Challenge race.

Little video of Alex talking about breaking the 24 hour record whilst racing in the Barcelona World Race.
Hugo Boss, the sponsors of the boat, must be extremely happy with this result, it shows Alex is capable of great things (which we all knew anyway), its only a shame that they had to make a pit stop to make repairs. Any pitstop on the race resulted in a minimum 48 hour stay in port. Alex and Capey were only 57 hours behind the winner on Paprec-Virbac 2. I ask what might of happened if they hadn’t stopped?Alex has shown that he will now be threat in the next Vendee Globe at the end of this year, he has a fair few months to fine tune all that he has learnt from this race, which can only make him faster.

Congratulations to Alex and Capey, well done on 501 nm! More Sailing Articles