Volvo Ocean Race – The day started in a party atmosphere

by Team Brunel - Robbert-Jan Metselaar on 19 Jun 2015 Volvo Ocean Race – It was Bouwe Bekking’s birthday yesterday! But it was certainly no holiday for the skipper of Team Brunel. No cake, no candles and no party hats. The only decorations were a very long garland of seaweed attached to the keel.

The day started in a party atmosphere. When the birthday boy appeared on deck at 4 a.m., his Team Brunel was proudly in the lead. He couldn’t have wished for a better gift. After the start in Lorient, the seven boats were soon embroiled in a match race along the coast of Brittany, zigzagging past lighthouses, across bays and between tiny islets. It was a battle for the best wind, and particularly the most favourable currents, against a beautiful backdrop.

Team Brunel was fastest in the race around the buoys and found itself at the front of the fleet by daybreak. The seven boats were now sailing in an extended pack towards Brest, the most westerly point of the French coast. Sprawling rocks sheltered small, secluded beaches. The sun rose timidly from behind a church tower. A French cockerel was crowing and we smelled the fragrance of freshly cut grass. Everything seemed to be perfect and skipper Bekking was looking forward to his birthday celebrations.

However, the party was rudely interrupted shortly after we rounded the Breton peninsula. The boats were sailing close to the French coast in order to avoid the stronger currents in the deeper water, but suddenly our boat was going nowhere! You could even feel it. It was as if we were stuck in a slice of birthday cake. We shifted weight forward and then backward again. We tried changing the mast setting. We trimmed everything that could be trimmed but, one by one, the boats behind us caught up and passed. First Alvimedica, then MAPFRE and Dong Feng, followed slightly later by the rest of them. We had dropped from first to seventh place within 45 minutes. The boys on deck tried to keep calm, but they must have been seething. 24 hours’ work had gone down the drain. “Unbelievable,” said Pablo Arrarte, shaking his head. “Unbelievable,” echoed Louis Balcaen, running his hands through his hair.

As a last resort, the not-quite-birthday-boy Bekking gave the command that no skipper wants to utter: he ordered a so-called ‘backdown’. This basically means turning into the wind and letting the boat float backwards, in the hope that whatever is stuck to the keel will slide off.

When the manoeuvre was completed, a large ribbon of seaweed appeared behind the boat. Thankfully, when Team Brunel resumed its course, the boat was behaving normally. But the birthday feeling had disappeared together with our great position in the lead. In this Volvo Ocean Race, you get nothing served up on a plate, least of all a slice of birthday cake. Even when you’ve just turned 52.