NINE months down the track and with over 40,000 nautical miles of racing, the 2008/2009 edition of the Volvo Ocean Race has come to a close where spectators and sailors have seen everything from great racing, close finishes, crews hired and fired, friendships forged, acts of bravery and sportsmanship, all in the cauldron of one of the toughest sailing endeavours left on the planet. And that was nothing to say of the crowds that swelled every port stop over the circumnavigation of the globe.
With the bright lights and picturesque setting that Russia has to offer, St Petersburg played host to the final curtain on the event that has captured the masses and the odd Limerick interest too.
Ger O’Rourke and his reconditioned Volvo 70 yacht charged out the Shannon estuary last September as the Limerick businessman and decorated international sailor defied all belief from the sailing community and landed his Irish/Dutch Team Delta Lloyd campaign to the start line of the worlds toughest sailing race last October.
The campaign had triumphs and defeats, both on and off the water, but the experience gained by both O’Rourke and fellow Limerick sailor Edwin O’Connor will stand to them in any future endeavours.
Teams will now be disbanding and plane journeys will be made to return to loved ones, but the business end of the race still had to be finalised.
Credited as one of the worlds best sailors, Torben Grael and his Ericsson 4 team took the prize with a leg of the races still to be completed and Ken Read’s Puma Ocean racing took second ahead of the ever unlucky Bouwe Bekking and Telefonica Blue. The final awards night saw the most poignant moment come with the inaugaral awarding of the Hans Horrevoets Rookie Trophy, which was created in memory of Hans, who was lost at sea during the last edition of the race.
The Dutchman was washed over the side of ABN AMRO TWO on the transatlantic leg. He had played a key role in ABN AMRO’s unique and ambitious project to help young talent break into the top level of offshore sailing. His wife, Petra, was on hand to present the award and her emotional speech saw even the most hardened of sailors wiping tears from their eyes. The award was created to recognise a rookie sailor who was younger than 30 when the event commenced. The Race Committee made a selection from those nominated by the team skippers with the awarding of the inaugural Hans Horrevoets Rookie Trophy going to Michi Mueller from PUMA Ocean Racing, whom skipper Ken Read said had grown from a raw, untested rookie, into a linch-pin of the team.
And so the curtain call has come on the world’s toughest off shore sailing race, a race that has literally come to our front door with the links from Limerick and thousands that converged during the Galway stopover. It may very well be the end of this road, but there will be an eye cast to Alicante for 2011 to see if this island can produce anything like it has done already for the world of sailing.
