Ken Read/USA guided PUMA over the finish line this morning in Rio de Janeiro at 0427 GMT (0127 local) to claim the third podium place on leg five of the Volvo Ocean Race, a result good enough for Read to retain second position in the race overall at this halfway stage.

Ken Read and his team now have 53 points on the scoreboard having added six leg points and six gate points to their tally.  This keeps them in second place, but only a whisker ahead Telefónica Blue, whose total will be 50.5 points at the end of this leg, assuming they hold their current position.  Even if Telefónica Blue should beat Green Dragon on this leg, which now seems unlikely, it will not affect PUMA’s overall second place standing in the race. 

Read is skippering an entry in the event for the first time, and on this leg he had his first taste of the Southern Ocean and the experience of rounding Cape Horn.  On reaching the dock in the Marina da Gloria, Read said:  “It was a really long race.  I wondered if we would end up having to try and pace ourselves, but the fact is, there’s no such thing.  If you try to pace yourself, you just lose, so you can’t.”   The team recorded an elapsed time of 40 days 23 hours 26 minutes 60 seconds.

On the approach to the finish, Read wrote, “We will have this experience to look back on forever, although I don’t think the magnitude of this leg will really sink in until after the completion of the race.    Where we have been, what we have seen, the laughs, the frustration, the hardships are the moments in time that one can never forget – none of it can be taken away.”

Throughout the leg, PUMA was consistently in the top three, only dropping to fourth momentarily and on three occasions leading the fleet.  From day 24, 9 March, they settled into third place and held that right through to the finish today.

Leg Five Finishing Order Rio

Overall Leaderboard (Provisional)