Embrace The Challenge Arrives in Newport
- 2 days ago
- 3 min read
Embrace The Challenge has arrived in Newport, Rhode Island, marking another significant milestone for Oliver Heer Ocean Racing and the team’s new IMOCA campaign.
For the first time, the full Ocean Race Atlantic race crew of Ollie Heer, Liz Wardley, Marie Riou and Lincoln Dews have completed a sustained offshore passage together onboard Embrace The Challenge.
The team has arrived in the US with something increasingly valuable: confidence.
Since taking ownership of the boat earlier this year, every mile has been about learning. It takes time to understand a new IMOCA, develop knowledge of its systems, calibrate performance and learn how to sail it effectively as a crew. The 10-day crossing to Newport provided the perfect opportunity to bring all those elements together.
Reliability has been good, confidence in the boat continues to grow and the team is developing a deeper understanding of the sail wardrobe – where the crossovers sit, which combinations perform best and how those choices change across different wind angles and conditions.
For Ollie, that growing familiarity is changing the relationship with the boat.
“Every mile is making the picture clearer – how we want to sail the boat, where the sail crossovers are and what works best at different angles. It’s a complex boat and our first transatlantic together gave us a real mix of conditions, so it was a great opportunity to keep learning as a crew.
“We worked well together and built a lot of confidence in the boat and in ourselves as a team. It’s starting to feel like our boat now, and arriving in Newport feels like a real milestone because we’ve crossed an ocean together and learned a huge amount along the way.” - Ollie
Optimising Performance
Much of Ollie’s existing performance knowledge comes from his previous experience as a solo IMOCA skipper, where the priorities and sailing style are different. Sailing with four people onboard opens up new possibilities – from how hard the boat can be pushed to how manoeuvres, sail changes and decision-making are managed.
As the fundamentals and onboard systems become increasingly familiar, conversations are now turning towards smaller performance gains and improving life onboard.
In an IMOCA, “comfort” will always be a relative concept. But being able to turn attention towards those finer details is a positive indication of how far the team has already come.
The next area of focus is spending more time sailing the boat at the harder angles – conditions that will be important in the The Ocean Race world.
A Team Challenge
This isn’t the first time that Ollie has raced out of New York, but this time it feels very different.
There is far more happening behind the scenes. There are more people, more logistics and more moving parts, spanning the technical and sporting operation through to partnerships, communications and events.
“This campaign is a step up in scale and complexity, and we are embracing that challenge. There are more people, more logistics and more moving parts, but we have deliberately surrounded ourselves with people who bring years of experience from across the IMOCA world.
“Seeing the whole operation come together here in Newport is a really positive sign that the structure is working and that, as a wider team, we are starting to find our rhythm.” Theresa Heer, Team Manager
For Embrace The Challenge, the next two weeks in Newport are about regrouping, reviewing what has been learned and finalising preparations for the race back to Europe.
On 26 August, the team moves to New York, where the pace and energy levels will ramp up again as the team gets back into race mode, ready for The Ocean Race Atlantic, starting on 1 September.
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