It was an historic moment tonight in St Petersburg, Russia, when as the White Night turned to dawn the Volvo Ocean Race fleet, led by Telefónica Black in a thrilling climax, crossed the tenth and final finish line of this nine-month, 37,000 nm race around the world.
0141 GMT this morning we managed to do what we have tried to achieve many times during the last eight months…To win a leg!
Telefónica Black did not get off the starting line, just outside Sandhamn, as well as we normally do. After the traditional ‘show off’ loop, reaching fast both ways, we left the massive spectator fleet behind together with many nice memories from this first Volvo Ocean Race stop in Stockholm.
This really cold evening, reaching on port, we on Telefónica Black have just seen Almagrundet lighthouse blinking straight ahead, the first rounding mark before the finish. The water is very cold for the season, only 9 degrees Celsius and I apologize to my shipmates for not being able to offer a warmer welcome to the Swedish east coast.
Right now Telefónica Black is 12 nm due south of Trelleborg, a little town on the Swedish south coast. We rounded the south west corner of Sweden, Falsterbo Rev, in third place, a few hundred metres ahead of Ericsson 3. The westerly breeze picked up and we were not surprised to see Ericsson 3 pulling away from us, as we now are running instead of reaching as earlier today…
Onboard Telefónica Black we have been going through three very hectic days, the last day more so than the others.
What a great day for us on Telefónica Black..! ‘The Blackies’ are in the lead after a good strategic move and really good crew work. Among other things we survived with 42 knots of wind having our biggest gennaker flying, an act of balance.
The crew of Delta Lloyd just gets better and better. Although finishing in fifth place this morning in Galway at 0339 GMT, the team had been up in the lead during this leg and was in contention for a podium finish right up until the last moment.
The night is ice cold as 28 knots of SSW’ly wind is blowing over rugged water which has the modest temperature of 9 Celsius.
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