Puma wins epic tussle in Volvo Ocean Race 5th leg

American skipper Ken Read and Puma overcame a food shortage crisis to win an epic tussle with Telefonica to complete victory on Leg 5 of the Volvo Ocean Race. Friday's win was a triumph for Puma’s 50-year-old skipper Read, who held his nerve as 2004 Olympic champion Iker Martinez harried him all the way along the Brazilian coastline to the finish in the southern port of Itajai. Victory earns the American crew 30 points, temporary second place, and is a huge morale-booster after the toughest leg of the race through the Southern Ocean and around Cape Horn, a 7,500-nautical mile marathon which led to five of the six-strong fleet needing to halt for repairs. That included Spain’s Telefonica who stopped for 17 hours before hauling back the leaders for a classic match-race over the last 24 hours. "I've never done such a tough offshore leg in my life. We ran out of food a day and a half ago so we haven't eaten. It's been pretty intense," said a hugely relieved Read after his victory with 12 minutes 38 seconds to spare. "Our hearts go out to the crews who have suffered damage. We know what that's like and it's even worse when it's in a place like the Southern Ocean." Martinez, whose crew had pulled back from 400 nautical miles behind to just a few hundred metres, added: "Four days ago we were not thinking about this at all. It was pretty amazing that we were able to catch these guys. "The weather was perfect so we were very lucky in that sense to catch up. Everyone was dreaming about having a chance and at the end we got that chance. The Puma guys were doing a great job and they won, so congratulations to them." Puma have been playing catch-up themselves throughout the race so far after coming to grief on leg one when they lost their mast following a rigging failure. Groupama, who swapped the lead several times with Puma in leg five, suffered a similar fate 650 nautical miles from Itajai and were forced to take refuge in Uruguay, for repairs. Franck Cammas’ crew planned to rejoin the race with a patched-together mast to sail to Brazil to collect 20 points for third spot. Behind them, Camper (Spain/New Zealand) were due to set sail again from Puerto Montt in Chile after a major rebuild of their mast but China’s Team Sanya (broken rudder) and Abu Dhabi (hull damage) are both out of the leg. The 39,000 nautical-mile, eight-month race, reckoned to be professional sailing’s toughest test, is scheduled to finish in Galway, Ireland, after four more legs. The fleet next sails to Miami. Overall standings: 1 Telefonica (Spain) 147, 2 Puma (U.S.) 113, 3 Groupama (France) 107, 4 Camper (Spain/New Zealand) 104, 5 Abu Dhabi 55, 6 Team Sanya (China) 25