And the rest

Andy Rice reports from the finish of leg four of the Volvo Ocean Race

Paul Cayard looked pretty happy to have brought the Black Pearl into Rio in second place. Having held second spot for the past few days, anything less would have been hard to take but the severe rain squalls did the American no favours. It allowed Brasil1 and ABN AMRO Two right back into the game and, with just miles to go, any one of these three had a serious shot at the runners-up spot.

ABN AMRO Two were on a late charge until they blew out their Code 4 gennaker in a squall. Team mates Luke Molloy and Hans Horrevoets set about a rapid repair and had it up and flying for the final hour into the finish. Having finished just 30 minutes behind Pirates, it must have left them wondering what might have been had the sail not exploded. But any regrets were swamped by the elation of having stormed through to leeward of Brasil and taking third place by just 19 minutes in front of Torben Grael.

Such were the confusing conditions and the rapid place changes, the Brasil crew didn’t even realise that they’d finished fourth. They had seen the masthead lights of another Volvo Open 70 through the darkness ahead of them. It must be Pirates or ABN AMRO Two, they didn’t know which. Not until they actually turned into Marina da Gloria and saw three VO70s sitting side by side, did they realise that they had been relegated into fourth place, in their own home waters beneath the gaze of Sugarloaf Mountain.

Torben Grael did a good job of disguising his disappointment, and revealed part of the reason why perhaps they lost out in the dying miles. “It was unfortunate as we had a few breakages towards the end of the leg. We were forced to use our smaller spinnaker as we ripped the larger one and this affected our speed.”

Although Brasil1 never really shone on this leg, Grael held out greater hopes for the rest of the race. “We are quite confident with the boat’s performance. We learnt a lot on this leg. We didn’t have a very good sail selection and we missed a couple of sails that we chose wrongly but despite that, we still managed a close finish. Now we have different conditions for the rest of the race, with a little less wind, which should make it better for us.”

Brasil’s disappointment contrasted with the exuberant celebrations of ABN AMRO Two just minutes earlier. Having seen Torben Grael sail past them two days earlier on sheer upwind boatspeed, it was sweet revenge to win back third place at the very last.

Considering the way this group were brought together under a selection trial process, where Seb Josse had little say in the team that he would sail with, 'the kids' have become a tight unit, who clearly enjoy each other’s company. Navigator Simon Fisher said: “We all have a laugh together. We keep the spirit high and the humour at base level, which is all good. I’m sure we have a lot more fun than a lot of the other boats. There is plenty of joking going on. We take the sailing very seriously but we also do this because we love it. It’s important not to lose sight of that.”

Paul Cayard seemed pretty pleased with how his team was gelling, too. Even before the start of the Volvo Ocean Race, he had pegged Rio as the place where he needed to have got his act together. He figured that for a late-arriving campaign such as Pirates, the points system still allowed time for him to work up the Black Pearl to full speed. "I'm pretty proud of myself for that prognostication," he said dockside. "We got second in the inshore at Melbourne, we were second at the Horn and second here. The boat's going pretty good, the sails are sorted out and the crew is good, but it took to Rio to achieve it."

From the way he was talking, it appears that Cayard is on track to fulfil his ambitions, and those ambitions no longer seem to stretch to winning this race. “It's getting pretty apparent that ABN is a different beast and it’s a very fast boat,” he smiled. “Juan Kouyoumdjian has done a very good job and she’ll be a very difficult boat to beat. In the next leg there will be a lot of reaching across the Caribbean and if there was a chance to upset them it was here. This is notoriously a light air place.”

No doubt that Cayard will do all he can to halt the ABN AMRO One juggernaut, but you sense that for the Pirates that ship has already sailed. “We'll do the best we can, you never know what can happen in sport and sailboat racing, but I feel really satisfied that we have brought this programme a long way forward since being the last team to get started.”

Certainly Pirates’ improving performance will have given much for their sistership Ericsson to think about, as they scratch their heads over the possible causes of their worrying lack of competitiveness.

Overall points:

1. ABN AMRO One - 49
2. ABN AMRO Two - 35
3. Pirates of the Caribbean - 30.5
4. movistar - 26.5
5. Brasil 1 - 26.5
6. Ericsson - 21