Fraught victory for Team Brunel

And a dismal outcome for Dongfeng as the Volvo Ocean Race descends on Lisbon

Having led on three separate occasions, including one time extending their lead to 25 miles (and subsequently losing it again) during this awkward leg from Newport, RI, it was Bouwe Bekking and the crew of Team Brunel that finally consolidated their position to win the Volvo Ocean Race's seventh leg into Lisbon, Portsmouth this morning.

Team Brunel sailed up the Tagos Rover shortly after dawn this morning to take line honours off Lisbon in a time of nine days and 11 hours. With overall race leader Abu Dhabi Ocean Race sailing a disappointing leg, the performance of the Dutch team leaves them third overall, just one point behind second-placed Dongfeng Race Team.

“The men delivered some great work,” said Bouwe Bekking. “But big compliments are also due to the technical shore crew who brought the boat into tip-top condition in Newport.”

“It was one of the calmest trans-Atlantic legs that I’ve ever sailed. We had hardly any wind. Only on one occasion last night we had a 24-knot wind but the rest of the leg was mostly cruising over a flat Atlantic Ocean. On the other hand, the racing was particularly intense. With such short distances between the boats, you can’t relax for one second. Every mistake is punished mercilessly. After this leg, the race is wide open again. We still have two legs to sail and we’ll continue to fight for the highest possible position right to the end.”

Crewman Louis Balcaen added, while grinning from ear to ear: “We knew that the fleet would bunch together again just before Lisbon. I was stiff with fright when I saw MAPFRE suddenly coming rapidly closer when they got a good gust of wind. I had goose bumps and was ever so relieved when we crossed the finish line. We deserved the win because we were really faster than the Spaniards on the ocean. We’ve been sailing for eight months and the race will be decided in the last three legs. Weird! We stand a good chance of claiming second place in the general ranking now that Dongfeng Race Team has come in fourth. I believe in it.”

On the first day after the start, Team Brunel was at the back of the fleet, but in the 36 hours that followed she overtook Team Alvimedica and Team SCA and then the other three boats. On the approach to the southern end of the ice exclusion zone, she had pulled out a lead of 25 miles but then lost this again after they failed to go far enough north. Team Brunel was among the southerly group sailing around the north side of the Azores high and only managed to regain the lead two days ago, after an intense tussle with MAPFRE and Dongfeng Race Team. She then led the two chasing boats around the southern side of the exclusion zone around the shipping lanes off Lisbon and although her five mile lead evaporates to just over one mile passing Cascais, she had done enough to claim the win by 21 minutes and 50 seconds from MAPFRE.

MAPFRE finished Leg 7 at 5:31 UTC after nine days, 11 hours, 31 minutes and 39 seconds, the Spanish VO65 claiming its third podium finish in this Volvo Ocean Race.

'Ñeti' Cuervas-Mons admitted that: “The only boat we didn't want to beat us has done just that, so it’s a little bitter-sweet to be honest, but it’s a good position and obviously great for the team.”

For the Spanish team the key to the leg was negotiating the Azores High: “Three boats were very close coming through the anticyclone, so from then on it was all about boat speed and handling. That’s where it was decided and where Brunel did a really good job,” explained skipper Iker Martinez. His team mate Xabi Fernández added, “it was where the leg was at stake. After the Azores High it was a speed race.”

Dongfeng Race Team was comfortably holding third place with a 20+ mile advantage at midnight as the boats approached the Portugese coastline, however unlike the two boats ahead of her, the Franco-Chinese team roundly got stuck just off the river entrance. From being comfortably on the podium, Charles Caudrelier's team could do nothing as Team Alvimedica - holding fifth place at around the time Team Brunel was finishing, steamed around both fourth placed Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing and a still wallowing Dongfeng Race Team to claim third by a mere 55 seconds - allegedly the 'fourth ever closest finish in Volvo Ocean Race history'.

“I am really angry with myself for the mistake we made just before the finish line, but at myself not the team – they did a great job," said Caudrelier. “My main mission is to keep my anger in me and to apologise to my team, as I don’t think I was a very good skipper this morning. They had a very good spirit and mine was negative which was maybe why we lost that position. I need to work on me. I need to spend a few days back with my family to recover.”

For Charlie Enright's team, the podium position outcome was substantially better received: “We have been awake for the last 24 hours so it’s still settling in. No one gave up and we kept ourselves in touch so that we could make a play in the end.”

While a podium finish seemed to slipping away last night the US-Turkish crew tapped into their local knowledge to play the important land breeze as the sun rose on the Bay of Cascais this morning (the team trained for a month in Lisbon one year ago, providing the young guns some insights to local conditions...)

“We knew that it would go light and when we parked, we knew we wanted to be close to shore," explained Enright. "It would have been nice to fetch up the river, but instead we engaged in an excrutiating 20-tack duel with Dongfeng. I told Charles (Caudrelier) it looked like a knife fight with spoons. But we were fortunate enough to grind it out in the end and had a good result.”

Team co-founder and watch captain, Mark Towill, added: "It was a big credit to Will (Oxley) and the navigation team for the pre-race work. It was quite a grind off and a physical challenge in the last few miles. It was a huge credit to the guys on the boat-handling.”

Leg seven results:

1st: Team Brunel
2nd: MAPFRE
3rd: Team Alvimedica
4th: Dongfeng Race Team
5th: Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing
6th: Team SCA

Overall scoreboard:

1st: Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing – 16 points
2nd: Dongfeng Race Team – 21 points
3rd: Team Brunel -22 points
4th: MAPFRE – 26 points
5th: Team Alvimedica – 27 points
6th: Team SCA – 41 points
7th: Team Vestas Wind – 52 points