ABN AMRO One home

Andy Rice reports from Rio de Janiero

After leading leg 4 of the Volvo Ocean Race for so long, it would have been a travesty for them to have lost it all at the end. Rio de Janeiro is notoriously fickle, but on this occasion Mike Sanderson and his team on ABN AMRO One drifted across the finish line and won the 6,700-mile battle from Wellington.

Surrounded by a flotilla of spectator craft, including one that nearly crashed into the VO70, ABN AMRO One finished in Guanabara Bay just after midnight local time, at 00:18:23 (03:18:23 GMT). They had been at sea for slightly more than 20 days, and have now bagged another seven points to add to their already significant lead on the scoreboard.

After the embarrassing start to their campaign way back in November, when ABN AMRO One finished a very distant last in the In Port race, the general perception of the Juan Kouyoumdjian design is that she is highly potent in anything over 10 knots, but that in less than 7 or 8 knots and her fat-bottomed, twin-ruddered configuration does her few favours. On the evidence of this leg, however, it seems she might not be quite so vulnerable after all.

Speaking soon after ‘Black Betty’ had pulled into the Marina da Gloria in Rio, Sanderson commented: “You only have to be a little distance away with slightly more wind, and suddenly you’ve got a faster boat. Offshore it’s much more about wind and where you place the boat. In an offshore mode, the boat is no slouch in the light, and that’s what we counted on in the design phase, and we’re happy with it.

“I’m very excited to be in Rio. This is a pretty big milestone in the Volvo Ocean Race. We’re now roaring back into the Atlantic and there are some pretty exciting times for this boat coming up. This is the leg we were most worried about, except perhaps for one or two of the short ones. We compromised this boat to reach fast and in hard downwind conditions I was a bit worried about it against some of the other guys, but we did a big run down south and went fast when we needed to.”

So if the boat is matching the performance of the other teams in its perceived areas of weakness, this is not good news for anyone who still believes they can wrest the number one spot away from ABN AMRO One. Sanderson is not one to talk things up, but you get the sense that he’s only occasionally using the extra gear that is available to him in the boat’s favoured conditions - hard reaching.

He doesn’t like to have to push the boat hard, he’s acutely aware of how close to the limit ‘Black Betty’ is operating. But the likes of movistar, Pirates and ABN AMRO Two all notched up 24-hour runs over the 540-mile mark on this leg, which forced Sanderson’s hand a couple of times. “You just have to decide how hard you can get away with pushing it. Every so often you put the hammer down, and I think we banged out the biggest six-hour run, a 143-mile run, and that was exciting because I think the guys behind thought they had it all over us, and we banged out a big run.”

Sanderson was very relieved to have left behind the Southern Ocean. “These things are pretty highly strung to have down at 60 degrees south. But we’re here in one piece. No holes, no nothing, she’s good to go. Down south is hard work mentally. These boats are so exhilarating and they’re so fast, it’s like taking a 49er across the Atlantic. It’s full on, I think we saw up to 37 or 38 knots boatspeed.”

Four years ago, Gordon Maguire recorded that haunting interview which so eloquently reflected the feelings of his team mates on board the VO60 News Corp. Their close brush with the icebergs was something that would stay etched in their memories for a long time. Asked whether they would ever head into the Southern Ocean another time, and many said never again.

This time, while the fleet cursed the ice gates for taking them so far out of their way, at least it meant that no one saw ice. But for round-the-world rookie Rob Greenhalgh, completing the Southern Ocean phase of this race was still a big personal milestone. “It's a world apart - wet, grim, grey. You take it one watch at a time. After a couple of days you’ve worked out what to wear. You’re in your survival suit, you get up, go on watch, eat your food, get some sleep, get up again. Same stuff every day, just grey, wet, windy, cold.

“So from a personal point of view, it’s making it through the Southern Ocean, but from a team point of view it was getting here in one piece. Our aim was to be on the podium, so to get here first, and first through the scoring gate - it’s a massive achievement really. movistar have fallen apart again - good for us, I feel sorry for them, but such is life.”

For Mike Sanderson, his greatest moment was reaching Rio in first place, with nine crew mates that he counts as friends. "The high point is the way the guys have gelled as a team, the way they get on. We’re very good mates, we enjoy each other’s company, we enjoy being out there, we enjoy our yacht, and we’re having a good time racing against some tough teams."