Alicante, Spain: Leg 0 of the Volvo Ocean Race served up drama galore including a man — and sail — overboard plus a surprise winner today in Team Vestas Wind to give a mouth-watering taste of things to come when the real event starts in just three under weeks.

The dress rehearsal, which does not count towards Volvo Ocean Race points, climaxed with a thrilling finish just before daybreak on Sunday morning with five of the seven boats arriving within 20 minutes of each other and the sixth completing the two-day return trip from Alicante to Palma, Majorca a further 16 minutes later.

Denmark’s Team Vestas Wind finished just 10 seconds ahead of Team Brunel of The Netherlands for victory. Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, skippered by Britain’s Ian Walker, finished a strong third, only 12 minutes behind the Dutch team.

From the finish line in Alicante, Walker reflected on the dramatic rehearsal race: “We learnt a lot from how it started and how it ended. We hope to continue the momentum into Leg One.”

“The decision to pass between the islands wasn’t always the plan,” he went on to explain.

“We tried to leave ourselves options until the last minute, based on where we were relative to the fleet, and it seemed like the right decision at the time.

“It wasn’t one that we necessarily wanted to make, but because of the position we were in the fleet, it was one we kind of forced ourselves into. If we could do it again we probably wouldn’t have.

“From a positional standpoint, we had half the fleet one side, half the fleet to the other, we would have liked to go north but we weren’t in a position to do so. After the decision though everything was great and we managed to pick a few boats off in the end.”

Sixth-placed Dongfeng Race Team experienced more than their fair share of excitement when they were forced to rescue a fore sail after it slipped overboard on Friday and then Chinese sailor Jin Hao Chen (Horace) was forced to hold on to a halyard line after falling off the boat at around midnight on the same day while working on an outrigger.

He was swiftly rescued by his crew-mates, suffering nothing more serious than a hand injury and a sharp lesson in the inherent dangers of the world’s leading offshore crewed professional race.

Horace added: “I fell in the water and I was hanging on by holding the wire. I was helped back on the boat very fast. A lot of skin came off my hand and it hurt badly but I was able to continue just using one hand.”

His skipper Charles Caudrelier underlined that this was a lesson for everyone in the Dongfeng Race Team.

“He’s young and he’s learning that he has to take care of himself. It could have been a lot worse in race conditions. It’s not very funny to lose someone in the water, in the middle of the night.”

Team Vestas Wind, skippered by Australian Chris Nicholson, were surprised and delighted in equal measure after securing victory by such a slim margin. The campaign was only launched last month and this was their first competitive sail against the six other members of the Race fleet.

“If you’d have told me a couple of days ago that I would finish this way, I would have said it would have to take some luck but there was no luck. I couldn’t be happier. We learnt so much about ourselves and the boat in this race — but there’s still a long way to go,” said Nicholson.

The teams will now take stock and prepare both themselves and their boats ahead of the Volvo Ocean Race’s opening on Saturday, October 4 with the Alicante in-port race.