*📸 Marin Le Roux - polaRYSE / 11th Hour Racing*

Now that the news is out there that I’m joining Team Malizia for The Ocean Race Europe, I can finally share our team’s schedule for 2025. It’s going to be a busy one!

I’m really pleased that I’ll be able to do a few more weeks of training and racing with UpWind by MerConcept, which will finish mid-June with the Ocean Fifty Series event in Saint-Malo. The vision and drive from both 11th Hour Racing and MerConcept to bring together this powerful group of female sailors in multihull sailing has been inspiring. It hasn’t always been easy - there have definitely been some real challenges - but we haven’t stopped smiling and laughing throughout, and I know I have made some lifelong friends in the process. For me, this is sport at its most powerful - challenging the status quo while still competing at the very highest levels of the game. I’ll be sad to leave, but I know that in Anne-Claire Le Berre there is a really strong leader, supported ably by Elodie Mettraux, and I’ll be their biggest fan cheering from the (virtual!) sidelines.

After completing my TRANSAT CAFÉ L’OR qualifying passage of 1,000 nautical miles with Will Harris in early June onboard Malizia-Seaexplorer, we’ll return Team Malizia and fully crewed racing at the end of the month in the La Course des Caps, a 2,000 mile race from Boulogne-sur-Mer in northern France around Great Britain and Ireland.

After two months in Europe, I’ll be ready for a trip back home to Utah to be with my family. The bike trails in Park City will be open and I can’t wait to be spending some time in the mountains with Sally and Harriet, working on my strength and cardio in the gym to get me physically ready for a busy summer.

In early August I have a week with 11th Hour Racing in Newport, Rhode Island. A chance to come together with my wider team and our Title Sponsor to debrief, plan, think, dream, and learn from each other as we develop our Believe, Belong, Achieve campaign and plan for 2026 and beyond.

And then the real hard work begins!

In mid-August I’ll be racing with Team Malizia for The Ocean Race Europe, racing onboard for four of the five legs, in the six-stop dash around the continent. The current plan is for me to join the team in Portsmouth, UK, and race from there to Cartagena in Spain - a city I know really well from my Olympic days - then onwards to Nice, in France, before heading ‘home’ to Genoa in Italy. The last time I was in Genoa was at the finish of the 2022-23 edition of The Ocean Race when we won with 11th Hour Racing Team. I have some incredibly special memories from those days with the team and I look forward to making many more with Team Malizia. After a whistlestop three days, we’ll head onwards for the final leg from Genoa to Montenegro - a country I’ve never been to before. Always discovering and exploring …

After a short hop back home to see the family again, I return to Brittany, France, the epicenter of offshore yacht racing, to prepare for the TRANSAT CAFÉ L’OR with Will Harris (GBR). The transatlantic race from France to Martinique in the Carribean is going to be a steep learning curve, my first as a co-skipper, but having Will alongside me for my first race is going to be great - he’s such a huge asset to the team as he knows the boat inside out. I’m really looking forward to learning with him for my first race with the newly named 11th Hour Racing!

So all-in-all quite a busy year!

Please keep following our social channels for all the latest news and insights from the team. And we love hearing from you too - what do you want to know about? Let us know here and we’ll do our best to keep you updated.

Team Francesca Clapcich Powered by 11th Hour Racing - Schedule

January-June: sailing as crew onboard UpWind by MerConcept Ocean Fifty

May & June: IMOCA training with Team Malizia

Early June (provisional): TRANSAT CAFÉ L’OR qualifier onboard Malizia-Seaexplorer IMOCA

June 29 - ~July 6: La Course des Caps with Team Malizia

July: preparation for The Ocean Race Europe with Team Malizia

August & September: The Ocean Race Europe with Team Malizia

October: preparation for the TRANSAT CAFÉ L’OR, based in Lorient

October 26: start of the TRANSAT CAFÉ L’OR in Le Havre, France

~ November 8-10: finish of the race in Martinique, Caribbean

Our 2025 Team Schedule Is Here… And It’s Packed!

Will Harris joins Team Francesca for TRANSAT CAFÉ L’OR