Iker Martínez's nightmare scenario came true after all on the last nautical miles of the first leg from Alicante to Cape Town. While the Spaniards - once again too close to land and caught in the cover of the mountain range - were caught in the doldrums and almost came to a standstill, the women from Team SCA sailed from the sea towards the finishing harbour at a relaxed ten or eleven knots. In the end, they only crossed the finish line with a boat speed of two knots, but secured a highly competitive sixth place in the fleet of seven boats. At the end of a botched opening leg, the Spanish "Mapfre" crew, who had been in sixth place for so long, had to concede defeat to the pink and blue ladies flying the Swedish flag. The Spaniards still had a nine nautical mile lead on Friday morning. However, they squandered this with another positioning error during the navigationally challenging approach to Cape Town.
The live animation on the Volvo Ocean Race website showed the misery of the Spaniards in merciless brutality: "Mapfre" wriggled like a fish in a net, twisting and turning but not moving, while the women were heading for the line. At around 9 a.m., the SCA crew saw their rivals in the battle for the penultimate place for the first time and sensed the morning air. With the better approach to Cape Town, they were able to prevail against the men's crew, which was peppered with Olympic champions and offshore stars, in the following hours. Anbord reporter Corinna Halloran said during the final nautical miles: "It's never over until it's over. This is just one example of how hard we will fight in the coming months." Skipper Sam Davies said immediately after crossing the finish line: "It just feels great. I'm very, very proud of this team." Trimmer Annie Lush said: "It's great that we were able to overtake the Spaniards. I like trimming in light winds..."
For "Mapfre" skipper Iker Martínez and his crew, the defeat right at the start is a serious sporting and psychological setback. The Spaniards, who were among the favourites before the start of the 12th edition of the Volvo Ocean Race, had won this first leg in the last race around the world and now have to ask themselves how the "derailment" could have happened. Olympic champion Martínez, co-skipper and companion Xabi Fernández, offshore ace Michel Desjoyeaux and navigator Nicolas Lunven have several navigational and tactical errors to blame after the conclusion of the 6,487 nautical mile leg.
The break in South Africa will have to show whether it was down to the chemistry on board and whether the team will make personnel changes after the heavy defeat in Cape Town. In many ocean races before "Mapfre", crews have started the race around the world with a false start only to make a brilliant comeback. For example, "Swedish Match" in 1993/1994: the men around skipper Gunnar Krantz and navigator Roger Nilson lost the first leg, but then won the second convincingly. The watch captain at the time, Tim Kröger, remembers: "We felt like idiots after the first leg, and things got pretty heated within the crew too. But then we pulled ourselves together and prepared the second leg extremely intensively. Right at the start, we were able to pull away from the fleet with a lone decision, even though we had previously vowed not to undertake any more individual actions. But in this case, we were spot on and were able to catapult ourselves back into the game with a victory in leg two."
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
