Volvo Ocean Race Inport win a giant boost for youngest team
by Rob Kothe and Jedda Murphy on 5 Oct 2014
The fleet during the start of the In-Port Race in Alicante. Ainhoa Sanchez/Volvo Ocean Race
Sail-World interviewed 30 year old skipper Charlie Enright ahead of today’s first 2014-2015 Volvo ocean Race Inport race.
Enright was realistic about Alvimedica’s overall chances but today’s win will have had a major impact on team confidence.
The Alvimedica team has had an excellent preparation, having sailed 15,000 VR65 miles. They finished almost within shouting distance in an informal close passage voyage with Ian Walker’s very experienced Team Abu Dhabi, from their home port of Newport back to the UK before the Round Britain Race.
Enright commented, ‘We are looking forward to the Inport Race and the long race start in a week’s time. We took a break before the Round Britain race, just the way the schedule worked out. We kind of took a break before starting that and some of the rust showed early on. It got to a point where we were pretty happy with how we were sailing eventually, but definitely not right out of the blocks. We had a sail tear in that race that set us back a little bit. The result wasn’t exactly what we were looking for but again, good moments and bad moments.
‘Leg 0 may or may not be a bit of an anomaly how close the boats finished to each other. There were a bunch of different resets here and there. We caught a fish trap up that we actually found remnants of when we hauled our boat of the water right after. Again for us it is just a matter of consistency and trying to put it all together.’
The young team has had some serious mentoring, Enright is from North Sails, and so Kenny Read has been taking them in hand.
Enright explains ‘The mentoring program has been very helpful in getting us where we are now certainly.
‘We had Paul Cayard with us initially to kind of bring some of the intensity he brings to all of his programs, to ours. We found that to be very successful and then Stu Ballantyne did a transatlantic with us and he was great. There aren’t a lot of guys with a better Volvo track record than he has. Kenny sailed with us for a little bit in Newport. We were just checking out more than anything else.
‘We have got Dean Phipps with us now as we do some of the inshore and coastal training. Dino I think is the best in the world. He has really helped us out just in the last couple of days and hopefully continues to as we move forward.
‘And in Will Oxley we have one of the most experienced navigators and seaman in this entire race. His experience kind of permeates throughout the group.
‘Our expectations for the Inport race and Leg 1 are uncalibrated at the moment, it’s hard to say. ‘Leading up to this we have had moments of brilliance and some moments that we are not terribly proud of. I am sure we will see more of that as we transit down south, but if we maximise our potential. I would be pretty happy.
‘When we set out to do this in January, we laid out a schedule and we have checked all the boxes on that. I guess if we could go back in time there are a couple of things we would change but by and large we are pretty happy with our preparation program to this stage.’
Results from In-Port Race
Order of finish:
1) Team Alvimedica
2) Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing
3) Mapfre
4) Team Brunel
5) Dongfeng Race Team
6) Team SCA
7) Team Vestas Wind
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