UNITED BY THE OCEAN
Born into a sailing family Portugal’s Mariana Lobato (35) began sailing at the age of eight and went on to race her first European Championship in the singlehanded under-16 Optimist class.
Having worked her way up through larger dinghy classes like the Snipe and 420, and into Olympic classes like the 470, 49erFX, and Nacra 17, Lobato specialised in match racing – a discipline in which – sailing with Rita Gonçalves and Diana Neves – she represented her country at the London 2012 Olympic Games before going on to win the women’s match racing world title in 2013.
Since then she has been a regular face on racing GC32 and M32 catamarans and on the larger Ocean Fifty trimaran regatta circuit.
A qualified paramedic, Lobato is taking on her first around-the-world edition of The Ocean Race in 2023 having been a member of the Portuguese Mirpuri Foundation Racing Team which was victorious in the VO65 class in the inaugural staging of The Ocean Race Europe in 2021. She joined Paul Meilhat on board Biotherm, and will become his co-skipper at the end of the round-the-world race, for the Défi Azimut and the Transat Jacques Vabre.
| Course | Rank | Boat | Time | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | The Ocean Race Atlantic | Winner | UNITED BY THE OCEAN | 7J 23H 39min 11s |
| 2025 | The Ocean Race Europe | 2nd | MACSF | 40 POINTS |
| 2023 | Transat Café L'OR | UNITED BY THE OCEAN | Abandon | |
| 2023 | Défi Azimut-Lorient Agglomération | 20th | UNITED BY THE OCEAN | 2j 06h 36min 00s |
| 2023 | The Ocean Race | 4th | UNITED BY THE OCEAN | 23 POINTS |
2021: The Ocean Race Europe / Mirpuri Racing Team - 1st
The last of IMOCA’s ‘2022 vintage’, Biotherm was launched on 31 August in Lorient, after an express build taking just thirty weeks or so at Persico in Italy.
Read moreLife for the crews onboard the six IMOCA boats competing in The Ocean Race Atlantic has gone from hard to harder over the past day.
•••There have been mixed fortunes for the six-strong fleet of IMOCA yachts competing in The Ocean Race Atlantic as the crews complete their second full day in the North Atlantic on the way from New York to Lorient, France.
•••One week from today, six of the world’s leading offshore sailing teams will depart New York City for the inaugural edition of The Ocean Race Atlantic.
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