Italian sailor Ambrogio Beccaria and his team Allagrande Mapei took first place in the Ocean Race Europe Leg 4, breaking Biotherm’s so-far perfect score. Leg 4 saw the fleet facing electrical failures, unstable Mediterranean conditions, and the infamous Bouches de Bonifacio.
Ambrogio Beccaria’s team Allagrande Mapei Racing made a triumphant finish to The Ocean Race Europe Leg 4 as they arrived in Genoa, Italy early Wednesday morning.
Beccaria, who built and launched his Class 40 yacht in Genoa in 2022, said he considers the city his second home, and was overjoyed to have gone from missing Leg 1 completely due to a dramatic collision with Holcim-PRB to winning this stretch.
The Ocean Race Europe Leg 4 saw the fleet of IMOCA 60s on a 600 nautical mile leg that started in Nice before snaking around Corsica, through the famed Bouches de Bonifacio, and into Genoa, which hosted the Grand Finale of inaugural edition of The Ocean Race Europe in 2021.
Already at the start of the Ocean Race Europe Leg 4, Beccaria had said he had only one goal– to be first across the finish line in Genoa.
After coming ashore in the night, having finished the leg at 01:42:14 local time on Wednesday 3 September, he confirmed, “I always want to win every leg. But this one was special because the finish was in Italy.”
Beccaria wasn’t the only Italian sailor looking forward to a homecoming.
Francesca Clapcich of Team Malizia said, “I’m really looking forward to having a lot of Italian people coming down in Porto Antico in the middle of the city. We have an Italian boat also in this race with Ambrogio. Hopefully people will be really excited to come down, check it out, and spend time together.”
Second at the end of the Ocean Race Europe Leg 4 was Yoan Richomme’s Paprec Arkéa, followed by overall race leader Biotherm in third.
Ocean Race Europe Leg 4 at a glance
- The fleet leaves Nice sailing upwind
- Biotherm first through the scoring gate off Monaco
- Light winds off the Western side of Corsica
- The pace picks up as the fleet races through the Strait of Bonifacio
- Power outage onboard Allagrande Mapei as they pass the Island of Elba
- Homecoming victory for Ambrogio Beccaria and team Allagrande Mapei
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The fleet, Code Zero headsails high, headed upwind in 8 knots of wind. Photo: Jean-Lous Carli / The Ocean Race Europe 2025.
Holcim-PRB, with Nico Lunven replacing skipper Rosalin Kuiper for Leg 4, and Paul Meilhat’s Biotherm made the cleanest start, slipping away from the pack within the first minutes of the race.
Team Amaala opted for a port start, heading offshore hoping for stronger winds and hoping to reap the benefits of a radically different tactic.
Paul Meilhat of Biotherm, the race’s clear overall leader, had commented, ‘It’s better to be the hunted than the hunter, that’s for sure. I don’t really care about the pressure. It’s not that I like it, but it doesn’t affect me a lot. When you’re chasing the others, it’s more pressure. You have a problem to fix, you’re not really confident.”
True to his word, Biotherm was once again first through the scoring gate at Monaco, snatching the lead from Paprec Arkéa at the last second.
Photo: Gauthier Lebec / the Ocean Race Europe 2025.
The winds died away overnight, taking the fleet through patches of calm. Paprec Arkéa held speed more consistently than the fleet, managing to gain a one mile lead.
A breath of air around 2am separated leaders Holcim, Paprec, and Biotherm from the rest of the group.
“Our first night at sea didn’t really go according to plan,” said Team Malizia’s Cole Brauer of falling behind, which she called “disappointing.” “They were blasting away while we were just sitting ducks.”
Uncertainty in the Mediterranean
In the Mediterranean, “Nobody knows what’s going to happen,” said Biotherm’s Benjamin Ferré. “We study the Meteo and try to understand what will happen, but in the end it is totally different. So we just have to adapt, keep moving, keep focused, and try to go as fast as possible in the right direction.”
Pip Hare, who sailed the last leg of The Ocean Race Europe 2021, said, “My experience is there is not a lot of wind, with waterspouts and thunderstorms – it throws it all at you.”
Photo: The Ocean Race Europe, Powered by PredictWind.
As in Leg 3, Italian sailor Ambrogio Beccaria of Allagrande Mapei remained unfazed by the unpredictable conditions in his home waters.
“I love Mediterranean sailing,” he commented. “I was born here and it is what made me love the sea. I hope she loves me too, but sometimes it is a difficult relationship and it is hard to understand what she wants.”
Sprint through the Bouches of Bonifacio
Team Hoclim-PRB pulled ahead as the fleet approached Bonifacio, with Biotherm and Paprec Arkéa close behind. They were fresh off a long night of light air sailing, during which the fleet stayed compact.
“There’s going to be lots of manoeuvres now, lots of tacking, a transition. We will probably go into the strait upwind and come out of it downwind. It’s going to be a busy few hours,” said Alan Roberts aboard Team Holcim-PRB.
As the fleet came into the Strait of Bonifacio and the wind increased from five knots to nearly thirty, the sailors had to exchange their enormous Code Zero headsails for smaller J3s.
Photo: Julie Champolion / The Ocean Race Europe 2025.
“Racing around Corsica is always very tricky because the mountains on the island are big and their wind shadows are huge,” says Paprec Arkéa’s Yoann Richomme.
Holcim – PRB skipper Lunven explained how the Venturi effect impacted conditions, “In the Bonifacio Strait the wind increased because of the funnelling effect between Corsica on our port side and Sardinia on our starboard side. These islands are very high – especially Corsica – between 2,000 and 2,500 metres. It is a narrow passage between the two, so the wind accelerates a lot.’
Still, he commented, ‘30 knots for Bonifacio is an easy day – it could have been way worse!”
Allagrande pulls ahead off the Island of Elba
Photo: Pierre Bouras / The Ocean Race Europe 2025.
Even as they dealt with an onboard power issue that left them without sailing instruments for an hour, Ambrogio Beccaria’s team Allagrande Mapei managed to pull ahead of the fleet while passing the island of Elba.
“At one point we tried to charge our battery and the engine didn’t start. So we had to shut down the whole boat, steer the boat with nothing – at night. Morgan succeeded in repairing the alternator and we were able to go on with the race. But that moment could have been the end for us,” said Beccaria.
Allagrande’s triumphant arrival in Genoa
Photo: Lloyd Images / The Ocean Race 2025.
Beccaria’s Allagrande Mapei held on to their lead and made the most of an incoming breeze from a Mediterranean low pressure system. They sprinted towards Genoa, hitting 25 knots of downwind foiling speed and increasing their advantage to 20 nautical miles over chasers Paprec Arkéa.
Undaunted, Paprec Arkéa managed to shrink the gap to just eight miles, but it ultimately wasn’t enough to overtake Beccaria’s homecoming team, which pulled away again thanks to an offshore drainage breeze.
When is the Ocean Race Europe Leg 5?
After enjoying celebrations and some much-needed rest in Genoa, the fleet will set off for Ocean Race Europe Leg 5, the race’s last, on 7 August. The 1,000 nautical mile dash to Montenegro will take them through a scoring gate at Santo Stefano, in the Arcipelago della Maddalena, before the race’s grand finale in Boka Bay.
If you enjoyed this recap of the Ocean Race Europe Leg 4….
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