Turkish-American boat Team Alvimedica set off for the final 460 nautical miles (nm) of the Volvo Ocean Race at midday on Saturday (1000 GMT) with six other boats intent on hauling them in before they reach Gothenburg.
The fleet has covered more than 38,300nm of the total distance in just under nine months of racing since it set sail from Alicante, Spain, in early October last year.
Team Alvimedica, skippered by 30-year-old Charlie Enright, is one of only two crews in the fleet yet to have won a stage in the nine-leg race and they are determined to put that right over the next two and a half days.
They have a 91-minute lead over Dongfeng Race Team (China) after arriving in The Hague for a one-day ‘pit-stop’ following the first part of leg nine from Lorient, France.
Team Alvimedica have an outside chance of a top-three podium place but would need their closest rivals -– Team Brunel (Netherlands), Dongfeng, and MAPFRE (Spain) — to slip back in the leg rankings to achieve that.
Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing already look to have the overall Volvo Ocean Race trophy sealed. The Emirati crew, skippered by Briton Ian Walker, have an eight-point lead and would need to finish last in the leg to Gothenburg and accrue two penalty points in the process to lose that advantage.
Meantime, Dongfeng (second in the leg) and Team Brunel (fourth in the leg), are heading for a tie for runners-up spot overall, which can only be settled by the in-port race series which is concluded in Gothenburg on June 27, the final event of the 2014-15 edition.