Malizia 4 is about to get its first real test against a rival built on a completely different philosophy, and the comparison is more interesting than most pre-season hype. Andy Rice sits down with Niall Myant-Best and Rosalin Kuiper — a sailor who knows the previous Malizia hull intimately from her Ocean Race 2023 campaign — to pick apart what separates this new IMOCA from DMG Mori Global One before both boats line up for the 3,300-mile dash from New York to Lorient.
The conversation is less about hype reels and more about design trade-offs. DMG Mori, drawn by Guillaume Verdier, has chased consistency over peak spectacle: a hull shaped to hold a semi-foiling state rather than chase the fleeting seconds of full flight that dominate social media clips, paired with a fly-by-wire steering setup borrowed conceptually from sim racing. Malizia 4, designed by Antoine Koch, takes the opposite bet — a narrower, more aerodynamic shape that still manages to keep some liveability below deck, a detail Kuiper flags as more comfortable than her time aboard the older Malizia hull would suggest.
Why Malizia 4 and DMG Mori Split Opinion
What makes this transat genuinely revealing is that neither boat has raced the other before, and both are barely two months old, untested against a fleet that includes proven veterans like the ex-Malizia 3 hull now sailed as 11th Hour’s Mālama. Kuiper’s own 24-hour record with that older boat becomes a useful yardstick for the discussion — a reminder that radical design doesn’t always mean instant speed, and that crews still need time to learn a new boat’s full potential.
The full Malizia 4 vs DMG Mori breakdown also digs into a rudder rule loophole stirring debate in the class, and touches on whether DMG Mori’s shaping owes anything to AC75 thinking — a question the class measurer apparently answered with a firm no. For readers following the broader IMOCA design split ahead of The Ocean Race, it pairs well with our earlier look at two rival bets on the next generation of these boats.
Malizia 4’s Real Test Begins
With the Ocean Race Atlantic serving as the opening skirmish before next year’s round-the-world race, this transat is the first proper chance to see whether Malizia 4’s aerodynamic gamble or DMG Mori’s steadiness-first approach actually pays off on the water.
Video courtesy of THE FOIL — watch the full video on YouTube.
