Despite losing crewman after crashing into a large mammal and losing the lead, 11th Hour Racing skipper Charlie Enright and his battered crew found a way to retake the lead and cross the finish line …
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Despite losing crewman after crashing into a large mammal and losing the lead, 11th Hour Racing skipper Charlie Enright and his battered crew found a way to retake the lead and cross the finish line victorious as the morning sun rose in Aarhus, Denmark on Monday, May 29. Enright and his team currently lead the Ocean Race with 28 points. Team Holcim-PRB finished second and now have 27 points and Team Malizia is in third with 24 points.
"It's a good feeling to be at the top of the table," said Enright ashore at Aarhus on Monday. "It's more important to be on top in July than it is now, but this is a step in the right direction.”
The 11th Hour team has won the last two legs and three out of the last four races when including the In-Port races.
“We've been trying to make incremental improvements in every area of the campaign," he said. “We've done that on board the boat, we've done that on the technical side, and the logistics side as well as we set ourselves up for success everywhere in the team."
Navigator Simon Fisher agreed with his captain.
“We went into this leg knowing that we needed to be aggressive and we needed to have a good result in this leg to stand a chance in the race," he said. "So we tried to sail aggressively and we sailed our own race. Everybody did a tremendous job."
Nearly 4 hours after 11th Hour Racing Team won the leg, Team Holcim-PRB took a hard-earned second place finish, holding off Team Malizia who finished just five minutes behind in third.
"I think we've been sailing fast and as well as the others," said Holcim skipper Kevin Escoffier. “We had a few issues. At the beginning we had to earn some trust in our new mast and then we broke the 24-hour record, but it wasn't quite enough. The new IMOCAs are quite extreme. Fast but not very comfortable. I can tell you that doing 640 miles in 24 hours is definitely not comfortable. But by finishing in second place, we still have it in our hands to win The Ocean Race."
Escoffier and his Holcim-PRB team overtook Enright and crew after they slammed into what may have been a whale on Thursday morning. The sailors were thrown forward. Trimmer Charlie Dalin smashed his head and had a suspected mild concussion and media crewman Amory Ross injured his shoulder. Both men were placed on bed rest. Enright, navigator Simon Fisher and trimmer Justine Mettraux were shaken, but uninjured by the crash. The 11th Hour skipper rallied his battered team, took the lead back sometime over the weekend and and won Leg 5 on Monday morning.
Team Malizia’s third place finish drops them further behind than they would like on the overall leaderboard, but co-skipper Will Harris was defiant and confident when asked if they could still win the race.
“Of course we can. For sure, definitely. Anything can happen in this race. You have to keep believing all the way to the finish. There is plenty to fight for still," he said.
"We came so close to catching up to Holcim-PRB at the end there. Unfortunately we didn't quite get the result that we wanted. We really wanted to get a few more points than that."
11th Hour Racing Team Crew for Leg 5 of The Ocean Race 2022-23:
Charlie Enright (USA) – Skipper
Simon Fisher (GBR) – Navigator
Justine Mettraux (SUI) – Trimmer
Charlie Dalin (FRA) – Trimmer
Amory Ross (USA) – Media Crew Member
Overall Leaderboard
5 points = first; 4 points = second etc.
Note: Leg 3 and Leg 5 scored double points
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