Thrilling Leg 5 Finish

Those of us on the West Coast who were not actually sitting down to a holiday meal in the noon hour on Sunday had the opportunity to thrill to an exciting finish of the hardest leg in the Volvo Ocean Race, which did a good job with live coverage on its website.

Leg 5 of the around-the-world race takes the well-matched Volvo Ocean 65s from Auckland, New Zealand, through the iceberg-strewn Southern Ocean, and around Cape Horn to Itajaí, Brazil. A festive late-afternoon crowd gathered there to cheer on the first four finishers.

Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, skippered by Brit Ian Walker, led the way into Rio Itajaí, finishing at 12:30:10 PDT. While that ecstatic crew celebrated, the second place boat, MAPFRE, approached in the light breeze and finished at 13:02:56 PDT.

The real cliffhanger was developing a few miles back, where Team Alvimedica and Team Brunel were jousting for the third and final podium position. Charlie Enright’s youthful American/Turkish Alvimedica won the duel, finishing at 1:24:32. Team Brunel came in just about a minute later — this after 19 days of sailing over 6,776 miles of grueling race track.

Team SCA, which has had equipment problems on this leg, is expected to finish tomorrow morning. Having broken their mast in the Pacific Ocean west of Cape Horn, Dongfeng Race Team is bringing up the rear under power. They made their way into the Beagle Channel for a pit stop in Ushaia, Argentina, to tidy up their rig, dropped out of the leg, and continued on through the safer and more northerly Beagle Channel route to the Atlantic.

The seventh team’s boat emerged from the molds at Persico Marine in the Italian Alps on Good Friday. Team Vestas Wind ran aground and broke their boat in the Indian Ocean during the second leg.