As possibly the shortest stopover in the history of the Volvo Ocean Race comes to an end in Auckland, Camper with Emirates Team New Zealand is race ready for the gruelling Southern Ocean leg ahead.
The boats have been stripped, checked and prepped and the sailors have had a small taste of rest and relaxation, but not enough to get comfortable before they head off on Sunday for the start of Leg 5.
Speaking at the press conference today, skipper Chris Nicholson commented, 'The race is still wide open, more than half the points for this race are still up for grabs, this is going to be a very hard leg, you don’t have to be the leader at Cape Horn, but you have to be in the leading pack or it’s too hard to catch up. This leg is the reason most sailors sign up for this race.
It’s been hard to get into race mode, we’ve had a huge amount of people out on the boat each day, so now we just want to go home, clear our heads and get ready for tomorrow. We’ll be back to the full sailing team and it’s time to focus on the job in hand tomorrow, if we do that right, we’ll have a good result.
In terms of the forecast it looks like 15 knots N/NE, so we should have a windward leeward course in front of what we expect to be a massive amount of spectators. This is a perfect arena for yachting on display to a worldwide audience. I’m really looking forward to getting out there and to nail down the racing.'
The InPort race starts at 1400 local time (UTC+13) in Auckland on Saturday 17th March.
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