Volvo Ocean Race and Team Alvimedica sail into Newport
NEWPORT, R.I. — Charlie Enright admits, it’s only practice, but that doesn’t detain him from barking orders at his crew with an intensity that suggests much more is at stake.
Things don’t start well for the 30-year-old skipper in this practice race in Newport Harbor. One of seven teams in the Volvo Ocean Race, Enright’s for Team Alvimedica gets out of the gate slowly, and has to play catch-up to the other Volvo Ocean 65 sailboats, the standard for all teams in this jaunt around the world making a stopover in Newport this week.
But Enright and the crew correct their mistakes, and eventually are right back in the thick of the race, satisfying the skipper from his perch behind the steering wheel.
“Nice recovery from a ****house start,’’ he tells the rest of the seven men who make up his team on this day.
As a native of nearby Bristol, and a veteran of the Brown University sailing team, Enright has navigated this course hundreds of times, but never with the pedigree he carries with him these days as the skipper of Team Alvimedica, giving him his first opportunity to sail the world in the prestigious Volvo Ocean Race. Enright founded this team and managed the campaign — everything from sponsor fulfillment to financing, and he currently has Alvimedicia sitting in fourth place overall, as the teams finish up their stay in Newport before beginning Leg 7 to Lisbon, Portugal on Sunday.
“It’s been a challenge. It’s been an adventure,’’ Enright said. “The competitive person inside of me will be disappointed if we don’t end up on the podium.’’
Enright had been looking forward to this stopover, a chance to visit with family an friends, not to mention to serve as a ambassador for the Volvo Race in the “Sailing Capital of the World.’’ During Thursday’s practice bout, he welcomed a trio of media members aboard the ship to witness the workings of a live race environment, as well as John Mollicone, his former sailing coach at Brown, from where he graduated in 2008.
“It’s absolutely amazing,’’ Enright said. “We’re very privileged to be able to compete in the Volvo Ocean Race, and to do it in a year when it comes to Newport is just amazing. The support we have received at this stop-over is unparalleled to any home team anywhere, really. Everybody’s really rallied around these events.’’
The stopover also gave the crew a chance to dive into some Americana, whether that meant a trip to Boston, or south to Manhattan to catch Game 7 between the New York Rangers and Washington Capitals on Wednesday night.
Onboard reporter Armory Ross is a native of Basking Ridge, N.J, where he grew up playing hockey, but always with an eye on sailing. And while he admits it’s difficult keeping tabs join his favorite hockey team — the Rangers — while at sea, the opportunity to attend a pair of Rangers playoff games, including this past week’s nail-biting Game 7, has been a bonding experience with his New Zealand mates.
“I learned about rugby when I was in New Zealand and watched a lot of rugby with them. So for me to share hockey, which is something I’ve always done, with a bunch of international athletes is really cool,’’ Ross said.
“There’s an element of you that just needs to relax and de-stress and kind of hit the rest button,’’ Enright said. “But then it’s right back into preparation for the next leg.
“There’s a balance between pushing yourself and seeing how much you can actually learn. The more you learn is certainly better than the place you finish.’’
Which is where Thursday’s race came into play, a race that navigator Will Oxley admitted is very different from anything Team Alvimedicia will experience in an offshore race, describing a closeness among the boats that would ratchet up the intensity.
“ You’ll hear me calling times because all the maneuvers are based on a countdown,’’ Oxley, a native of Australia, said. “So we know when we’re a minute-and-a-half from the mark, we need to be doing this and doing that. Normally, in an open area, I’d be calling two times. I’d be saying five and four, and that tells them we’ve got five minutes on the tack we’re on, and four minutes on the other. Because everyone has their heads down, I’m trying to let them know where we are on the race track.’’
It’s a different challenge in race like this, especially since the crew only consists of eight members on a boat that would normally sail a track like the one in Newport Harbor with about 20. Oxley labeled it a “grinder’’ of a race. “It’s completely full-on,’’ he said.
And so as hundreds of fans watched from the shore at Fort Adams State Park, the hometown heroes of Team Alvimedicia (sponsored by a Turkish medical manufacturer) surged through the second half of the race and came out on top, a satisfactory measure for next week when the team will attempt to pull itself out of fourth place and into a podium position.
Back ashore, Mollicone gave his former student an A-minus for his performance in the race. Enright will take it.
“We had a horrible, horrible start but we realized it pretty early and kind of got free from the group, kept ourselves out of trouble, and the guys did an amazing job with the boat handling,’’ Enright said. “We say that these boats are short-handed and that they can sail with eight, but they’re really sailing with seven. Driving’s the easy part.’’
Volvo Ocean Race Visits Newport
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