The Ocean Race: First announcement for the Ocean Race: "11th Hour Racing" is taking part

The two Americans finished fifth in the last Volvo Ocean Race with the "Vestas 11th Hour Racing" team. Back then, they were plagued by bad luck: A collision with a fishing boat off Hong Kong, which resulted in the death of a fisherman, forced the team to abandon this leg and the next, as the repair work took too long to make the next start. Although the team fell short of its expected performance, the Americans had delivered a very strong performance in the meantime.

So now a new attempt at the Ocean Race - and as one of the first teams to buy one of the top Open 60s to boot: Alex Thomson's old "Hugo Boss" was considered the fastest boat in the class before the latest generation was launched. Charlie Enright is correspondingly optimistic about the future: "With the incredible support of 11th Hour Racing, we are off to a perfect start. In the two previous Volvo campaigns we never had the luxury of a long preparation time. The fact that this is possible this time will be a huge advantage for our competitiveness and training schedule."

And the team is taking the plunge straight into the deep end: Enright announced the start of the double-handed Atlantic regatta Transat Jacques Vabre on 27 October. The team has been training for months with various French IMOCA teams in Port-la-Forêt. It will be interesting to see how the two Volvo veterans perform as Open 60 rookies. The French competition could well be in for a surprise.

At the same time, the team also launched an environmental campaign: under the motto "What's under the surface connects us", the aim is to draw attention to the importance of clean oceans for humans and the consequences of climate change. In times of Trump's climate change ignorance, this is a welcome effort by a US team. More information on the Website of the team.