Volvo Ocean Race: Mapfre dominates, Team Brunel falls short

The harbour race in Itajaí took place on Friday in 10 to 14 knots of wind. The Spanish team Mapfre, leading the Inport classification of the Volvo Ocean Race, sailed to an almost flawless victory. The Reds only made a few tiny mistakes. AkzoNobel was able to take the lead for a short time, but then Mapfre dominated the race again and took its third victory in the seventh short race of this 13th edition of the race around the world. The red rivals from Dongfeng Race Team finished third behind Simeon Tienpont's AkzoNobel team and are now five points behind their former training partners in the Inport classification.

The one-hour race was only exciting in the first two sections. Bouwe Bekking's Team Brunel, who made a strong start, was primarily responsible for this. The mishap then occurred at the first turning mark: a handling error when setting the spinnaker caused a severe and multiple knot in the huge cloth. The team under the Dutch flag struggled with this until they dropped back to last place. The subsequent race to catch up did lead Brunel past the slow-sailing Vestas 11th Hour Racing team, but it was not enough. Bekking and his crew must be annoyed about this.

It was a different story for Charles Caudrelier's Dongfeng Race Team. Once again, the French-influenced team flying the Chinese flag proved to be weak at the start. However, with good boat speed, Dongefeng finally managed to make it onto the podium. That was all that was possible, which was also due to the convincing performance of the AkzoNobel team, whose 49erFX Olympic champion Martine Grael had certainly wanted to win in her home country, but will also be satisfied with a very good second place.

The starting signal for the eighth of eleven legs in the Volvo Ocean Race will be given on Sunday. The seven teams will then bid farewell to Itajaí and set course for America's sailing capital, Newport.