A week ago, I sat on a train from Boulogne-sur-Mer to Paris, reflecting on the Course des Caps race around Great Britain and Ireland I had just completed aboard Malizia-Seaexplorer.

It was such an intense course! We started in a jammed packed village in Boulogne-sur-Mer and the feeling was similar to the crew parade in The Ocean Race. It was really cool to see the city coming down to the harbor and to cheer and support the teams. As a new addition to the IMOCA Globe Series calendar, the Course des Caps brought together an impressive lineup of 11 boats on the dock. It can’t be easy for race organizers to predict how well a new event will be received, but everyone involved did a fantastic job making it so appealing to the teams that it was a great success from start to finish.

We set off in a strangely quiet English Channel… No wind at all, fog and a lot of current! Not the right recipe for fast sailing in an IMOCA! We didn’t really show off the potential of these fast foiling machines until we got in more breeze a couple of days later.

Julien Villion, our expert navigator onboard, didn't have an easy job in this race with the tricky weather, sail changes, all the TSS [Traffic Separation Schemes] to manage - he had tons of work and little rest!

Right after the start we had a great moment even leading the fleet for a while. Malizia-Seaexplorer is a fast boat in displacement conditions and in strong wind VMG [Velocity Made Good - progress towards a specific direction] so we tried to maximize the gains in our strengths and minimize losses in our weaknesses.

The atmosphere onboard between Will, Julien, Cole, Flore, and myself was great and we all knew the goal was to push the boat hard. Performance wise we had our ups and our downs and we came into the finish in 4th just one spot shy of the podium. In a race where the conditions were not the best all the time for our boat the result reflects the effort we all put into going around Britain and Ireland as quickly as possible!

We had our technical issues too, with three broken battens that we replaced in less than an hour with a full team effort - Cole and Will cut the new ones while Julien and I were working on getting the broken ones out… At the same time the boat was ‘cruising’ around at 15/20 knots [17/23mph | 28/37kmph] with only the front sail up fully downwind! We also had to take care of Flore, our OBR, who fell when the boat nosedived unexpectedly in a wave and hurt herself quite badly.

Of course this effort would not have been possible without the work of the entire technical team who put us in such a privileged situation to be able to race with the boat completely ready and reliable.

For me it was a way to get a few points towards the 2028 Vendée Globe selection and to keep learning the boat as much as I can. I feel I’m getting there slowly but surely!

Shout out to Will, in his role as skipper he led from the start to the end, creating a great relationship between the shore crew and the crew onboard, with incredible grit but always with a smile. It will be an honor to share the Transat Café L’OR with him and keep pushing the boat, keep learning from his experience and keep having fun while doing it! Team Malizia is lucky to have Will, a performance centered sailor with a big heart for the people he is surrounded by!

I’m looking forward to joining the team again in a month’s time for The Ocean Race Europe, where I will be sailing four out of the five legs of the race! It will be fun and busy a few months ahead and I'm ready for it!!

From the start to the finish line: the story of my first race

Francesca Clapcich finishes Course des Caps in 4th with Team Malizia