Volvo Ocean Race - Team Brunel fights back and wins

by Team Brunel - Robbert-Jan Metselaar on 27 May 2015 After an extremely exciting finish, Team Brunel has won the seventh leg of the Volvo Ocean Race. Skipper Bouwe Bekking’s sailing team took 9 days and 11 hours to complete the leg to the Portuguese capital of Lisbon. Team Brunel is now third in the general ranking – only one point behind the second-placed Dongfeng Race Team. The race is not over yet.

“The men delivered some great work,” said a visibly happy Bouwe Bekking after the finish in Lisbon. “But big compliments are also due to the technical shore crew who brought the boat into tip-top condition in Newport.”

“It was one of the calmest trans-Atlantic legs that I’ve ever sailed,” continued Bekking. “We had hardly any wind. Only on one occasion last night we had a 24-knot wind but the rest of the leg was mostly cruising over a flat Atlantic Ocean. On the other hand, the racing was particularly intense. With such short distances between the boats, you can’t relax for one second. Every mistake is punished mercilessly. After this leg, the race is wide open again. We still have two legs to sail and we’ll continue to fight for the highest possible position right to the end.”

“We knew that the fleet would bunch together again just before Lisbon,” said Louis Balcaen. Although he was clearly exhausted, the young Belgian was grinning from ear to ear. “I was stiff with fright when I saw MAPFRE suddenly coming rapidly closer when they got a good gust of wind. I had goose flesh and was ever so relieved when we crossed the finish line.

'We deserved the win because we were really faster than the Spaniards on the ocean. We’ve been sailing for eight months and the race will be decided in the last three legs. Weird! We stand a good chance of claiming second place in the general ranking now that Dongfeng Race Team has come in fourth. I believe in it.”

“This is not just a victory,” said Brunel’s CEO Jan Arie van Barneveld as he shook skipper Bouwe Bekking’s hand. “This result has turned the ranking upside down. The finish was amazingly exciting and beautiful. When we met the boat last night, there was hardly any wind and it was as quiet as the grave on the water. Nobody was talking on board. The sailors were totally focussed. Bouwe and his team have sailed a fantastic leg. If they can keep up this speed, the last two legs look very promising. The excitement is back. That’s good for the sport, the event and, most of all, for Team Brunel.”

On the first day after the start in Newport, Team Brunel was at the back of the fleet, but in the 36 hours that followed skipper Bouwe Bekking and his men overtook Alvimedica and Team SCA and then swiftly caught up with the other three boats. Not long afterwards, Team Brunel took the lead for the first time. Until the finish line in Lisbon, they continued to swap places for the lead position in the Volvo Ocean Race fleet.

A day after the Dutch sailing team had taken the lead, the Atlantic Ocean was as calm as a Dutch lake. The sails flapped and the water was as smooth and flat as a snooker table. The ocean was shrouded in mist. However, once the mist had lifted, the five following boats raced towards the yellow and black boat in convoy. In no time at all, Team Brunel had lost its lead and Bouwe Bekking’s team was sailing only 50 metres behind MAPFRE in second place.

After the fleet had bunched together yet again, the five teams had to cope with the Azores High. This area of high pressure straddled the route to Lisbon. The Azores High occupies roughly the same position 365 days a year. It sometimes changes size and also revolves slightly. In the centre, there is no wind but the closer you sail to the edge of the high-pressure area, the more wind there is. But this also means sailing a longer distance. If you had drawn an imaginary line between Newport and Lisbon, it would have passed straight through the centre of the Azores High - precisely where no one wanted to sail. The navigators were faced with the tough challenge of finding the right balance between “enough wind” and “fewest miles”.

Team Brunel and MAPFRE were the only ones to opt for a shorter route with slightly less wind. Fortunately, the boats that were further north and had opted for the edge of the High, did not get the wind they expected. And suddenly MAPFRE, Team Brunel and later Dongfeng Race Team found themselves in a very good position. From that moment, skipper Bouwe Bekking’s men took over the lead again. Although navigator Andrew Cape had certainly not aimed at this, his course turned out to be a bull’s-eye.

In the days to come, the sailors will undergo the compulsory medical test. The men of Team Brunel – who are sponsored by the International Brunel secondment agency – will then take time to recover from this seventh leg. In the meantime, the technical offshore crew of the Dutch Volvo Ocean Race team, who besides the title sponsor Brunel, also have three official sponsors in Moduleo, Robeco and Schouten Global, will make a start on minor repairs and maintenance work. The sailors will have a break for a number of days, after which they will prepare for the In-Port race and the next leg, which is planned for 7 June.