Yachting: Team NZ counting down to race start

Skipper Chris Nicholson on Team New Zealand's new boat Camper. Photo / Dean Purcell

The waiting is almost over for the sailors in the Volvo Ocean Race and Team New Zealand skipper Chris Nicholson said they couldn't be more ready.

Camper will set off with five other entries from Alicante overnight for leg one of the gruelling around the world race - a 6500 mile stretch to Cape Town. It will be a good chance for each team to assess their relative speed against their rivals and Nicholson said Camper is ready to go and continue New Zealand's proud tradition in the race.

"We've been preparing and practising for this moment for over a year," he said. "The boat and the guys are in great shape, and we just want to get out there and prove the potential that we think we have.

"I feel that we've done everything we could to prepare the best that we can and now it's just a matter of starting racing and doing the job we're here to do.

"The Volvo Ocean Race is one of the greatest sporting challenges and I'm incredibly conscious of New Zealand's amazing history in this race. We want to continue that history and do all the great Kiwi sailors that have gone before us proud.

"We've said time and time again how competitive the fleet is this time and we know that we will have to fight hard for every metre of advantage, but this is a strong boat, a strong crew and we're backed up by a great shore operation.

"We are ready and confident that we will be competitive."

The fleet are in for a challenging first 24 hours with 25 knots on the nose and a confused sea state forecast for the beat out of the Mediterranean.

"We know that we're in for a hard and wet upwind ride to start with but we've done thousands of miles in this boat in those sorts of conditions around New Zealand so we know what to expect," Nicholson said.

The first leg sees the teams take on the unpredictable Mediterranean, the tidal bottleneck of the Straits of Gibraltar and the strong northeasterly trade winds of the North Atlantic before facing the Doldrums.

Once through the Doldrums, the teams will search out the southeasterly trade winds close to the Brazilian shore, hoping for a quick ride through the South Atlantic to Cape Town.