CAMPER claim fourth after Leg 5 odyssey

17 Apr 2012, 13:16UTC

CAMPER claim fourth after Leg 5 odyssey

PAUL TODD/Volvo Ocean Race

CAMPER completed their Leg 5 odyssey to claim fourth place and collect a vital 15 points on Tuesday, arriving in Itajaí to hugs from their loved ones and a frenzy from the young crowd following their month-long ordeal.

CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand, skippered by Chris Nicholson from Australia, finish leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12, from Auckland, New Zealand, to Itajai, Brazil.

PAUL TODD/Volvo Ocean Race

CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand, skippered by Chris Nicholson from Australia, celebrate finishing leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race 2011-12, from Auckland, New Zealand, to Itajai, Brazil.

IAN ROMAN/Volvo Ocean Race

Chris Nicholson - CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand

Tony Rae - CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand

CAMPER with Emirates Team New Zealand crossed the Leg 5 finish line in Brazil at 12:35:44 UTC on Tuesday 31 days after leaving Auckland, one of their two home ports.

The final result was a case of triumph over adversity for Chris Nicholson's CAMPER.

The team, who climb up to third place overall, were forced to suspend racing on April 3 when they pulled into the Chilean port of Puerto Montt for five days to fix structural damage.

“This leg, before we left Auckland was one where we had awesome potential I thought, and one of those factors was our reliability," said Nicholson.

“As always this race throws up lots of surprises and that was one of them. We’d done a lot of hard testing with the boat and never had a problem from day one.

“So, for this one to pop up like it did was both disappointing and surprising. What wasn’t disappointing or surprising was how the team dealt with the problem, everyone got on with the job that took a lot of resources and a lot of hard work from everyone right across the team to essentially rebuild the boat in Puerto Montt, Chile, and rejoin the race.

“It’s a valuable 15 points we’ll get. We won’t even know how valuable those points are until the end in Galway, but I have a feeling they’re vital.”

First place was claimed by PUMA Ocean Racing powered by BERG on April 6 after an epic victory over Team Telefónica, who fought back from a 400 nm deficit after suspending for repairs to claim second place, just 12 minutes behind the winners.

Groupama sailing team claimed the final podium position on April 10 under jury rig, after the team were forced to suspended racing to repair their broken mast on April 4 and resumed racing on April 7.