Sweet victory for movistar on Leg 3 Volvo OR

by Lizzie Green on 17 Feb 2006 In the battle for first place, the Spanish entry, movistar, skippered by Dutchman Bouwe Bekking, finally broke the offshore domination of the Dutch yacht ABN AMRO ONE in the Volvo Ocean Race, by crossing the finish line in Wellington today, nine seconds ahead of the black boat, skippered by Kiwi Mike Sanderson from Auckland.

The finish canon signalled Movistar’s finish at 13:09:26 local time (00:09:26 GMT) with ABN AMRO ONE following at 13:09:35 (00:09:35 GMT). As he stepped ashore, winning skipper Bouwe Bekking said:

“This is a really sweet victory. We just managed to hang in there so we are really happy. We have a really fantastic team and a strong after guard in Stuart Bannatyne, Chris Nicholson and myself and it means that we could swap over so we all managed to get some sleep.

“This leg has been unbelievably tense. We managed to get a little lead and it was gone in no time. New Zealand is a nice leg to win and after the start we had to the race this feels particularly special.

“The boat is in good shape. We have no serious damage and nothing too dramatic has happened.”

Stuart Banatyne (movistar) from Wellington, said:

“That was an epic leg. It was unbelievable to be the first boat into Wellington. I never thought it would come down to a one boat length win, but a win is a win! This is where I grew up, where I learnt to sail, and it is just fantastic to be back here. This is just really awesome and so special to me.”

Mike Sanderson, skipper of ABNAMRO ONE, who finished second, commented:

“It was a bit sad for us but great for movistar. We lost a 40 mile lead and that is pretty tough but we have had some awesome racing over the last 24 hours so we are pleased that we managed to hang on. We can’t be upset, we have extended our lead by adding six points to our score and that is why we are here.

The dockside in Queen’s Wharf, Wellington, was lined with spectators, as the New Zealand Army performed the Haka, in honour of movistar. Helicopters buzzed over head as the climax to leg three, 1,450 miles from Melbourne to Wellington, became more nail-biting by the minute.

It has been a tense 14 hours for these two teams, which began at 1000 GMT yesterday when movistar snatched back ABN AMRO ONE’s comfortable margin of 32 nautical miles as the wind died off Cape Farewell on the north western tip of New Zealand’s South Island.

As the two boats raced neck and neck, it was movistar who led ABN AMRO ONE through the entrance to Wellington harbour by 10 boat lengths, followed by a small armada of spectator craft. In only 13 knots of wind, three miles to the finish line, ABN AMRO ONE drew level again and it was a race dead to windward to the finish.

The leg finish in Wellington is reminiscent of other New Zealand finishes in this event, formally called The Whitbread Round the World Race. In 1993-94, Chris Dickson (Tokio) and Grant Dalton (New Zealand Endeavour) drew gasps of horror from the crowd as Tokio stalled and Dalton heaved his boat across the finish line in Auckland with grim determination.

Four years later, it was Dalton versus Dennis Conner in a match which had the two teams scrapping like cat and dog in 45 knots of breeze in the approach to the Auckland finish. Dalton was victorious by two minutes.

The next boat expected to finish leg three will be Pirates of the Caribbean (Paul Cayard).

LEG THREE DAY 5, 16.02.06, 00:32:55 GMT POSITION REPORT
YACHT LEG POINTS OVERALL FINISH TIME ELAPSED TIME POSITION OVERALL
1 MOVI 7.0 25.0 16/02/06 00:09:26 003d 22h 09m 26s 3
2 ABN1 6.0 38.5 16/02/06 00:09:35 003d 22h 09m 35s 1

YACHT Latitude Longitude DTF SMG 24 Hour Run 24 Hour Speed DTL DTLC PLPTS POP ETA OVERALL
3 POTC 41 08.74S 174 36.03E 00026 07.4 218 09.1 00000 +00025 5.0 21.5 16/02/06 03:07:39 4
4 BRA1 40 52.29S 174 13.84E 00048 02.9 239 09.9 00022 +00014 4.0 20.0 16/02/06 06:06:13 5
5 ABN2 40 42.41S 174 08.16E 00058 02.4 236 09.9 00032 +00013 3.0 28.0 16/02/06 07:35:25 2
6 ERIC 40 42.86S 173 59.00E 00067 06.5 279 11.6 00041 +00020 2.0 16.5 16/02/06 07:46:17 6

ABN1 ABN AMRO ONE
ABN2 ABN AMRO TWO
BRA1 Brasil 1
ERIC Ericsson Racing Team
MOVI movistar
POTC Pirates of the Caribbean

DTF: distance to finish, SMG: Speed made good, DTL: distance to leader,
DTLC: distance to leader change; the difference between the distance from the boat to the leader taken at the time of the last six hour poll, and the distance from the boat to the leader at the previous poll

SGPTS: points scored at scoring gates on this leg to date
PLPTS: projected leg points
PTLPTS: projected total leg points including actual points from scoring gates
POP: projected overall points including actual points from scoring gates
OVERALL: projected position in race overall if yacht maintains current position