Volvo Ocean Race Teams Arrive in Remarkable Finish

It was described as a bicycle crawl, but as the Dongfeng Race Team and Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing floated into port at Fort Adams shortly before 11 p.m., the moment was as dramatic as any high point in any major sporting event.

It was a dark night before the moon rose, the water was calm and the wind was light and somehow, after thousands of nautical miles, the two boats finished just three minutes apart.

The local team, Team Alvimedica, led by Bristol skipper Charlie Enright, finished fifth with a time of 17 days, 14 hours 24 minutes and one second.

“It was definitely a challenging leg for us, certainly not our best performance,” Enright said.

With this result, Team Alvimedica and MAPFRE (who took fourth in Newport) draw level in joint fourth place, on 24 points. Charlie’s crew wins the tie break due to their superior finishes in the In-Port Race series.

“We’ve learned a ton,” adds the skipper Mark met on the Morning Light movie set eight years ago.

“We’ve been behind since day one with not having experience from previous races but we’ve learned a lot about the boats, how to sail them, boat speed stuff, tactical stuff, comms stuff. Every day we are learning.

“As is everybody. I like to think we’ve learned at a little better clip because we had a little bit more to learn at the beginning. Although this result doesn’t reflect it, we’ve learned a lot from this leg too. One of these legs will be ours.”

A press conference with the teams is planned for this afternoon.

Follow the events at the Volvo Ocean Race (including live coverage of key events) here: http://www.volvooceanrace.com/en/home.html

Photos: Billie Weiss/Ainhoa Sanches for Volvo Ocean Race