Brunel to rejoin in Baltimore

by Volvo Ocean Race Media on 26 Jan 2006 Grant Wharington is to skip the next long legs of the Volvo Ocean Race so that, in Formula One terms, he can supercharge his Australian boat with two goals in mind – to win a grand prix towards the end of the season and to set a speed record.

Brunel, as his boat will now be known, will take part in the Melbourne in-port race on 4 February but is likely to miss the third, short leg to Wellington and will definitely skip the long Southern Ocean haul from Wellington to Rio de Janeiro and the next leg to Baltimore.

After Baltimore, the VO 70 fleet races to New York, Portsmouth, Rotterdam and Gothenburg.

Wharington and Brunel, a Dutch provider of professional specialists, are buying time to try to lift the Wharington boat on to a podium finish later in this round-the-world race. 'I don’t want to continue in the race as an also-ran,' Wharington said. 'I would rather win a leg than be in the fives, sixes or sevens (to finish).'

He said the VO 70s were so fast that, with the aid of the Gulf Stream current in the Atlantic, he believed they could travel more than 600 nautical miles in a day. Dutch boat ABN AMRO TWO set a new 24 -hour record for a monohull during the Cape Town to Melbourne leg of 563 nautical miles. 'If it can be done, we want to be the first to do it,' he said.

Wharington said that without making major modifications, they would be changing and updating the boat so that she would be 'fully cocked' for the goals he has set.

Apart from the Melbourne In Port race and a doubtful start in the Wellington leg, his schedule targets the Baltimore In Port race on 29 April. The six-week trip by ship means it will have to leave Melbourne or New Zealand in early March.

A provision of the contract with Brunel was that a Dutch sailor would have to be aboard and a short list of up to seven sailors was under consideration. Today Wharington stated that it was likely the newcomer would be in the middle of the boat rather than among the brains trust at the back. He did not discount more than one Dutch sailor participating or rotating the non-Dutch and Dutch members of the crew.