ABN AMRO One - first

Mike Sanderson's VO70 rockets into Cape Town

At 13:25 GMT (15:25 local time), Mike Sanderson's VO70 crossed the finish line off Cape Town's Victoria and Albert Waterfront, to take line honours on the first leg of the Volvo Ocean Race, picking up 7 valuable points in the process. At the time she was 49 miles in front of her team mates on second placed ABN AMRO Two.

ABN AMRO One, respendent in the yellow, green and black livery of her Dutch bank sponsors, gybed for the finish line under full mainsail and masthead spinnaker. As navigator Stan Honey predicted yesterday the wind has dropped off considerably to 8 knots for the finish.

Arriving to huge crowds at the Victoria & Albert Waterfront in Cape Town, the crew were reunited with family and friends having taken 19 days 24 minutes and two second to complete the 6,400 nautical miles leg.

Speaking from the boat, seconds after crossing the finishing line, ABN AMRO One skipper, Mike Sanderson said, “This is a great feeling and it’s been an unbelievable leg. There was a lot said about our boats, especially after the in-port race, but this has proved to everyone that these machines are capable of something special. Tactically, it all went to plan - we knew we were taking a risk by heading so far west in the Southern Atlantic, but we picked up some great winds during the latter part of the leg and after some fairly stressful moments, it thankfully all paid off.

“The team spirit has been fantastic and I’m so proud of all the guys. We’ve been pushed hard by our other boat, but it’s awesome to see how well they’ve done too. Between us we clocked some pretty amazing speeds out there and the world record was definitely the icing on the cake. The scary thing is that if you ask any of the crew they’ll all tell you that she is still capable of a lot more - and that’s the difficulty, knowing when to ease off. Although we’ve won this leg we’re all very conscious that there’s still a long way to go in this race, and as we’ve already seen, anything can happen. For the moment though, we’re just looking forward to seeing our families, getting some sleep and grabbing a cold beer!”

Despite the fairly comfortable lead in the closing stages, at no point did Leg One feel easy, according to Sanderson. “We had so many obstacles, I didn’t know what was going to come next. There was that big first night at sea, and then on the second day we had the fire to deal with. ‘Putting out fires’ is a phrase I use from time to time, but this was the first time I had to use that phrase literally!”

Stan Honey’s strategy developed prior to the start with veteran navigator Mike Quilter, of following 'The Road' contributed to a useful lead by the time they reached the first Scoring Gate of Fernando de Noronha. “We were on the way out to a nice lead, and then past Fernando we hit that wall in the South Atlantic and lost all our lead. That’s so rare. More often than not you can latch on to something big in that part of the Atlantic. You’re more likely to sail out to a 1,000-mile lead than lose a 150-mile lead - normally. But we stuck to our guns, and Stan did an awesome job of pulling us clear. It was a pleasure to work with him.

“Then we managed to drag off to another nice lead, and yet again for the last couple of days the boats have been sailing in from behind with 5 knots more breeze, so we just had to do what we could to stay between them and the finish.”

So Sanderson and the boys stood up to the many challenges thrown their way, and have proven themselves more than capable of coping with the pressure that comes with the Volvo Ocean Race. “Pressure is a good thing,” said Sanderson. “If you don’t take it all seriously enough, I don’t believe you’re going to do the right job. I’ve always said my biggest fear in this race is the result. But we’ve got a big programme, a big campaign, and lots of people believe in what we’re doing.”

Despite - or perhaps because of - the setbacks along the way, ABN AMRO One has looked a class act and has set the early benchmark for others to match. Any one of a number of factors could be cited for their success, but Sanderson says you have to look at the whole package. “We’ve got no big secrets, it’s about us trying to do as many of the little things as well as we can. You have to be very rounded to win the Volvo Ocean Race, strong in all areas. We’ve got a little light-air issue, but hopefully that’s something that we can overcome with our advantage in the breeze.”

Now lying in pole position with 11.5 points, ABN AMRO One will be looking to build upon this performance during Cape Town's in-port race on Boxing Day and then embark on the second leg to Melbourne on 2 January.