ABN Amro One dominates

by James Boyd, Daily Sail courtesy ABN Amro on 6 Feb 2006 Being first into Melbourne at the end of leg two of the Volvo Ocean Race paid off for TEAM ABN AMRO in more ways than just points on the board: they were able to get ahead of the game, first to haul out and start their essential boat maintenance and this in turn allowed them to be first back into the water to prepare themselves for Saturday's in-port race on 4 February.

And the hard graft by all the team paid off. The week culminated in One’s victory at the Melbourne in-port race. Apart from their last place in the initial in-port racing in Sanxenxo, Mike Sanderson's team have won everything so far in the Volvo Ocean Race: from the last two offshore legs, to the last two in-port races and being first at every scoring waypoint.

As a result, ABN AMRO ONE has extended even further up the leader board, now resting on 32.5 points while ABN AMRO TWO continues to hold second comfortably on 25, ahead of Bouwe Bekking's Spanish movistar team on 18.

After just over a week out of the water, the two ABN AMRO boats were relaunched on Monday night, rerigged and all the vital equipment to go racing once again put back on board.

Meanwhile the TEAM was taking care of many shore side and on the water commitments. Mike Sanderson went on a whirlwind tour of Sydney for two days to meet ABN AMRO employees and clients at the bank's Australian headquarters.
On Monday at the team pavilion in the race village, the ABN AMRO Foundation presented the Melbourne charity, Emerald Hill Mission with an A$25,000 donation. The Emerald Hill Mission is one of ten charities supported locally by ABN AMRO through its 'Opportunity for Giving' employee program, whereby the bank matches employees' donations dollar for dollar. In the last 12 months the program has raised A$400,000.

This was followed up by crewmembers from ABN AMRO TWO, including Australians Luke Molloy and Nick Bice, spending an evening helping the Emerald Hill Mission. ‘They have two vans which go around and we were just serving food,’ described Molloy. ‘We had hot dogs and toasted cheese sandwiches and tea and coffee and were giving them a hand.’

Some of the homeless they were helping had even been following the race. ‘There were a few people who had an idea but there were two fishermen there and they knew all about it and they had followed the race since the start. They were totally blown away that there were people from the winning team there. They really want us to go down and sign their boat…’

On Tuesday night the team paid a visit to the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria, in the Melbourne suburb of Williamstown where after the twilight racing they made a presentation and talked to the club members about the Volvo Ocean Race.
Highlight of the week for the Australians and cricket fans in the team was when on Thursday national cricket team captain Ricky Ponting came out for a sail on board ABN AMRO ONE, prior to the One Day International against South Africa in Melbourne.

Of his day out Ponting said ‘these boats are truly awesome and I have the utmost respect for the guys who take these boats around the world. There are certainly many similarities in being skipper of a cricket team and skipper of a boat. What's important is working closely as a team and trusting your captain. I can see how important that is when you're out in the middle of the ocean. They're a great bunch of guys and I wish them well in this race.’

In the preparation for Saturday's in-port racing on Port Phillip Bay, the sailing team spent the latter part of the week training. On Friday ABN AMRO ONE was able to carry out some informal race practice with Paul Cayard's Pirates of the Caribbean team.

Meanwhile for the weather teams ashore there was some concern over the expected conditions for Saturday. They were forecasting a 'thermal' wind, an on-shore breeze generated when the land heats up faster than the water, but would this provide 10 knots or 20 knots of wind?