Caudrelier skippers Chinese yacht Dongfeng to Volvo win

‘It’s changed my life’

THE HAGUE, June 25, (AFP): Frenchman Charles Caudrelier skippered Chinese yacht Dongfeng to a thrilling victory in the Volvo Ocean Race on Sunday after the closest finish in the race’s 45year history.

Caudrelier’s team held their nerve over the final 10 miles to win a leg for the first time in the world’s most extreme around-the-world sailing race that has seen seven yachts battle it out over eight gorry, Kevin Escoffier and Marie Riou of France, New Zealanders Stu Bannatyne and Daryl Wislang, China’s Chen Jinhao, Dutchwoman Carolijn Brouwer and Briton Jack Boutell. Dongfeng race team navigator Bidegorry correctly predicted that “after more than 45,000 miles of racing, this is going to come down to the last 45 miles”. And so it proved to be, with Dongfeng starting the final leg

Dutch Trimmer Carolijn Brouwer of Dongfeng Race Team of China, celebrates with her son Kyle after winning the Volvo Ocean Race in Scheveningen, The Hague on June 24. (AFP)

— a 970-mile sprint from Gothenburg, Sweden — level with Mapfre and Team Brunel.

Each of the three teams led at some point during the leg, but it was Dongfeng which finally came into port first after a bold call on Saturday to take a coastal route. The victory meant the Chineseflagged yacht closed the race on 73 points, three ahead of Spanish yacht Mapfre, with Team Brunel of the Netherlands rounding out the podium just a further point adrift. “With each Volvo race, you tell yourself ‘I am stopping’ but this is the only team race where there is the best level, where you are going into the most difficult seas, when you have to navigate the most difficult conditions,” added Caudrelier. “It’s the Olympic Games of the big races.”

Due to new rules which called for women to be added to the crews, Marie Riou and Carolijn Brouwer have therefore become the first women to win the Volvo.

“This race has changed my life,” added the winning skipper, the third French captain to have won the race.