CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA (24 November 2017) - After 7,000 miles of close ocean racing, it was a podium finish for Vestas 11th Hour Racing in Cape Town, South Africa. The crew of seven men and two women, plus one onboard reporter, finished in third place at 1937 UTC on November 24. The Danish and American flagged vessel left Lisbon, Portugal on November 5th with a bullseye on their back after winning Leg 1 from Alicante, Spain.
“For us, it continues to be about the process. We are trying get faster through the water and fine tune our decision making process,” said skipper Charlie Enright (USA) upon docking in. “Lucky for us, this isn’t going to be decided until June, so we still have a lot of time.”
“We got slingshot out of Lisbon and encountered a lot of downwind fast sailing,” continued Enright’s co-founder and Team Director Mark Towill (USA). “The team came together well. We still have a long way to go but we can’t argue with a podium finish.”
For over half of the 20 days at sea, the team was within sight of at least one of their competitors.
"The close racing of this leg over many miles has offered us a tremendous opportunity to up our game, evaluate our setup, and we have learned some good lessons and made some improvements onboard," said Navigator Simon Fisher (UK).
The last 24 hours were nail biting with both Vestas 11th Hour Racing and Dongfeng Racing battling it out for second place opting to go into Stealth Mode - the once-per-leg opportunity to have positions withheld from the skeds and tracker for 24 hours.
“We're pushing hard wherever we can,” said Jena Mai Hansen (DEN), on her first Volvo Ocean Race leg. "We are a very young team, and we didn't expect to start out this well. It's been a dream start for us. The team is working really well together; We're gonna keep fighting for more."
"The boat has held up well this leg. There were a few sail tears early in the leg and an issue with the toilet a few days ago that wasn't a fun repair, but we got those all set and have been happy with her performance," said Nick Dana (USA), Boat Captain.
Finishing third in Leg 2 puts five more points on the scoreboard for Vestas 11th Hour Racing. This means the team currently sits in 2nd overall, just one point behind the Leg 2 winner, MAPFRE and 2 points ahead of Dongfeng Race Team who finished second in the leg.
Nessun commento:
Posta un commento