On Sunday 9 March, Open 60 racing yacht Aviva arrived in Lisbon, Portugal after 42 days onboard a container ship, in transit from New Zealand.

Dee Caffari, Aviva’s record-breaking skipper, bid farewell to Aviva from Wellington six weeks ago and is now on route to Cascais, Portugal where she will meet up with the team to start an intensive period of sailing and testing in preparation for the Artemis Transat.

Whilst in Cascais, Caffari and the shore team will be carrying out extensive tests on Aviva’s keel following the discovery that Mike Golding’s Ecover III, built in technical alliance with Aviva, has developed structural faults with its keel. Dee said: “It’s great to see Aviva has arrived safely in Portugal…I can’t wait to get out to Cascais and start sailing. Once the keel has had the all clear we’ll be trying out all the new sails and doing some overnight sailing in the Atlantic.