Captain Ian Walker and Azzam will be ‘very, very careful’ heading to finish line at Gothenburg

Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (Ador) were back in the water yesterday as they began the final stretch to complete the Volvo Ocean Race. Despite already having the numbers for victory, though, there is no danger of the crew going through the motions before they reach Gothenburg.

Captain Ian Walker says he and the Azzam crew are ‘in kind of a strange position’ as the final stretch to the finish at Gothenburg. ‘We don’t want to do anything stupid,’ Walker says. Ian Roman / Abu Dhabi Ocean RacingShow less

Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (Ador) were back in the water on Saturday as they began the final stretch to complete the Volvo Ocean Race.

Despite already having the numbers for victory, though, there is no danger of the crew going through the motions before they reach Gothenburg.

They hold an unassailable eight-point lead at the top of the standings and only last place on Leg 9, victory for Team Brunel and a two-point penalty could ruin their victory ­celebrations.

But having safely reached The Hague on the coast of the Netherlands in fifth place on Friday, for a 24-hour pit-stop, Ian Walker, the captain of Ador’s Azzam, said ahead of yesterday’s restart: “We’re in a kind of strange position. It shouldn’t matter where we finish, but of course it does, because we have a lot of pride and we want to do as well as we can.

“We’ll be very, very careful and just make sure we don’t do anything stupid.”

Ador left The Hague three hours, 53 minutes and 43 seconds after Team Alvimedica, who had been first to reach port on Friday.

Team Alvimedica, skippered by 30-year-old Charlie Enright, is one of only two crews in the fleet yet to have won a stage in the nine-leg race and they are determined to put that right over the next two-and-a-half days.

They had a 91-minute lead over Dongfeng Race Team to take into the final 460 nautical miles of sailing that separates them from Gothenburg and the finish line.

Alvimedica have an outside chance of a top-three place but need their closest rivals, Brunel, Dongfeng and Mapfre, to slip back in the leg rankings.

Charlie Enright, the skipper of Alvimedica, said that it was not completely advantageous to be first away in the race to Sweden.

“Once we get out of here we’ve got a lot of decisions to make,” he said. “Some of the guys who are still in the dock, can sit back and see which way we go and whether it works out for us. But that’s the same for any lead in this race.”

If the positions remain the same on arrival in Gothenburg as when the fleet left The Hague, Alvimedica would be locked in joint fourth place on 34 points with Mapfre.

The Spanish boat left port in third place.

That tie can only be broken by the In-Port Race Series that reaches its finale on Saturday with its final staging, where Ador can clinch another ­success.

They need only to finish sixth in that race to guarantee top spot in the in-port standings and complete the double.

The seven vessels are expected to arrive in Gothenburg early on Tuesday morning UAE time.

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