Bristol’s Enright, Towill team up again for Volvo Ocean Race

Will lead Team Vestas - 11th Hour Racing campaign

Posted 3/21/17

Will lead Team Vestas - 11th Hour Racing campaign

Rhode Island will again have a home team to root for when the next Volvo Ocean Race sets sail in October.

Team Vestas is returning for the …

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Bristol’s Enright, Towill team up again for Volvo Ocean Race

Will lead Team Vestas - 11th Hour Racing campaign

Posted

Rhode Island will again have a home team to root for when the next Volvo Ocean Race sets sail next fall.

Team Vestas is returning for the 2017-18 around-the-world race, this time in partnership with sponsor 11th Hour Racing, the team announced at a Tuesday morning press conference in Newport.

Vestas 11th Hour Racing will be led by the American duo of Charlie Enright of Bristol, RI, and Mark Towill. The team is the fourth to announce for the upcoming edition, which begins on October 22, and they will use the race to promote a sustainability message around the world.

Enright and Towill had their first Volvo Ocean Race experience as skipper and Team Director of Team Alvimedica in 2014-15.“It’s an exciting time,” said Enright. “We’ve achieved a strong collective of sponsors, and the boat has now been refitted and branded in Lisbon, waiting for us to get over there and get it out on the water.

“We’re working hard on building a competitive team ahead of the race, and have a couple of transatlantic sailings lined up for April and May.”

The team will begin their training next month when they sail from Lisbon, Portugal to Newport, USA on a transatlantic training run. The team expects to be in Newport by the first week in May, staying for two weeks before they commence another ocean crossing to Cardiff, UK. No crew announcements were made Tuesday.

The Vestas 11th Hour Racing campaign is a unique platform for Vestas to promote its vision, which is to be the global leader in sustainable energy solutions, the firm announced.

“The Volvo Ocean Race is a proven platform for Vestas and a unique strategic fit to promote our new vision and market-leading energy solutions in our key markets and engage with customers,” said Vestas President and CEO Anders Runevad.

It’s also an ideal fit for 11th Hour Racing, a program of The Schmidt Family Foundation which establishes strategic partnerships within the sailing and marine communities to promote systemic change for the health of our marine environment.

“Our partnership with 11th Hour Racing sends a very strong signal with two leading players within sustainability combining forces to promote sustainable solutions within wind and water,” added Runevad.

Wendy Schmidt, 11th Hour Racing Co-Founder and President of The Schmidt Family Foundation, said: “Mark and Charlie have been serving as ambassadors for 11th Hour Racing for the past two years, having witnessed first hand during the last Volvo Ocean Race the many ways pollution and plastic debris are destroying ocean life and threatening all of us. Our partnership with Vestas is about inspiring positive change in the way we think about energy and the natural resources of the planet.”

Vestas competed in 2014-15 as Team Vestas Wind – running aground on Leg 2 and rebuilding the boat against all odds to make a landmark return in Lisbon at the start of Leg 8.

This is only the second time in the Race’s history, and the first since 1993-94, that three major team sponsors have returned for a second consecutive Race – with Vestas, Dongfeng and MAPFRE all back on the start line. Team AkzoNobel take the total number of confirmed teams to four with seven months still to go to the start of the race.

The teams will depart Alicante on October 22 and race 45,000 nautical miles around the world with stops at Lisbon, Cape Town, Melbourne, Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Auckland, Itajaí, Newport, Cardiff and Gothenburg before the finish in The Hague.

The One Design concept has reduced the need for campaigns to announce as early as in previous editions and there is no reason why a campaign getting off the ground this summer can’t go on and win the trophy.

2024 by East Bay Media Group

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A lifelong Portsmouth resident, Jim graduated from Portsmouth High School in 1982 and earned a journalism degree from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. He's worked two different stints at East Bay Newspapers, for a total of 18 years with the company so far. When not running all over town bringing you the news from Portsmouth, Jim listens to lots and lots and lots of music, watches obscure silent films from the '20s and usually has three books going at once. He also loves to cook crazy New Orleans dishes for his wife of 25 years, Michelle, and their two sons, Jake and Max.