Team Vestas Wind has announced that the team will re-join the Volvo Ocean Race before the end of the competition in June.
The Danish-backed team announced at a race prize-giving ceremony on New Year’s Day that it would make a comeback before the end of the race in Gothenburg.
On its Twitter account, Vestas CEO Morten Albaek said: "I'm proud to announce that we'll be back in the @volvooceanrace".
Vestas captain Chris Nicholson had said at the Abu Dhabi skippers’ press conference on Tuesday that the team would announce a decision on its future within a week.
The Australian said at Thursday’s awards: “This gives us the opportunity to perform one of the biggest comebacks in sailing and prove to the world who we are.”
The defiant skipper added: “We'll rebuild our boat just as we rebuild our hopes and dreams.
“This experience could've defined us. We could've allowed it to impact our campaign, our future, our lives. It won't.”
Nicholson alluded to the possibility that he will not change any of his personnel when the team do eventually re-enter the VOR.
“If I had to relive this all again I wouldn't want it to be with another bunch of guys. Today we stand together, united and real.”
Vestas, backed by Denmark’s Vestas Wind Systems, recovered the $6 million boat in better-than-expected condition from the reef near the Cargados Carajos Shoals in the Indian Ocean where it ran aground on November 29.
When Nicholson returned to the reef with a salvage team in mid-December, they discovered that the boat was reparable.
They cut off the keel, removed the mast and rigging and floated the hull off the reef, then placed it on a nearby Maersk cargo ship bound for Malaysia.
The team’s Volvo 65 vessel hit the reef, around 230 nautical miles off the coast of Mauritius, at a speed of around 19 knots.
Vestas now plan to rebuild it at an Italian shipyard and re-enter the race as it approaches the homestretch in Lisbon sometime in late May.
Speaking at the press conference earlier this week, Nicholson had thanked the sailing community for the support they had received from around the world.
“It’s given us hope for the future,” he had said.
“We use that hope to keep the programme moving. Our main aim is to be back and that’s always been the ultimate goal.”
Vestas and its crew of nine was sailing north through the dark near the end of a leg two storm when it hit one in the chain of islets.
The crew eventually abandoned ship, sheltering on the islands while the US-led Team Alvimedica diverted to the area to provide communications and support.
It was revealed in the aftermath of the incident that human error had led to it, with navigator Wouter Verbraak admitting he made a mistake with routing software.
The impact spun the boat around, sheared off the rudders used for steering and left the hull at the mercy of the waves, which pounded it against the reef, destroying much of the stern beneath the waterline.
