Fourth and fifth placed arrivals

Teams Vestas Wind and Alvimedica reach Cape Town

Team Vestas Wind secured fourth place on Thursday. Finishing at 1248 UTC taking 26 days 0 hrs 48 min and 47 secs to complete the leg from Alicante to Cape Town, the Danish team led by Chris Nicholson was quietly satisfied with their performance having only announced their entry six weeks before the race start at the beginning of October.

"We knew the first leg for us was just trying to get a reasonable finish and I think to be honest this is above expectations. We wanted better, you’ve got to set your sights high, but it’s given us more confidence for future legs and the rest of the race. We’re in a lot better shape now than we were in Alicante," said Nicholson.

Under the light of a full moon with iconic Table Mountain in the background, skipper Charlie Enright and Team Alvimedica finished their first-ever leg of the Volvo Ocean Race in fifth place. Team Alvimedica crossed the Cape Town finish line at 03:07 (01:07 UTC) local time completing the leg in 26 days, 13 hours, 7 minutes and 38 seconds.
 
With the exception of navigator Will Oxley, for Enright and the rest of the race crew, this was the longest continuous stretch of ocean racing they have ever done.
 
“There is sense of accomplishment tonight,” Enright said at the dock. “It certainly was a tricky leg with a lot of different components some of which we dealt with well and some of which we learned from. Twenty-six days is a long time we learned a lot about the team and I am pretty happy with where we are. We know what we need to do to get better and we will.”
 
Alvimedica CEO Dr. Cem Bozkurt followed the team in a support boat for the last few miles to the finish. “Tonight was the first time that we have realized the dream,” Dr. Bozkurt said. “The guys finished the first stage of the Volvo Ocean Race and now we know we can do it. It’s an amazing feeling.”