And they’re off! Volvo ocean racers sail for Portugal

EastBayRI.com ·

Twenty-four hours into the start of the 2017-’18 Volvo Ocean Race, Team Vestas 11th Hour Racing skippered by Bristol’s Charlie Enright held a slight lead of about five miles as the tight, seven-boat pack set a course for Leg 1 destination Lisbon, Portugal.

The 1,450nm course will take the teams through the Strait of Gibraltar and out around the small island of Porto Santo, close to Madeira, before heading directly to Lisbon.

Follow the race live here.

After a tumultuous couple of days leading up to the start for the team, it must have been a relief for captain and crew to finally focus their attention on sailing.

On Friday, this group that had been practicing together for months had to swap out two-time Volvo Ocean Race winner, Phil Harmer (Australia), for another Volvo Ocean Race winner and five-time veteran of the race, Damian Foxall (Ireland), due to a medical issue not helped by an earlier hand injury. This exchange resulted in the need to also substitute Jena Hansen (Denmark) for Hannah Diamond (UK) to comply with the safety rules that require two medics onboard. 

”The depth of our crew is a huge asset to our team," Enright said.

"Injuries happen in sport. We have a lot of redundancy on the team and we are fortunate to have good backups. We look forward to getting them back as soon as we can." If they are able, the replaced crew members will rejoin the boat for the long Lisbon to Cape Town leg.

Locals in addition to Enright on the home-town favorite boat are Mark Towill (a Brown University teammate of Enright’s), and Nick Dana of Newport.