At the final gala in home waters this weekend, how much must Bouwe Bekking have wished that his team had managed such a dominant performance on the last leg of the three-way battle for overall victory as they did in the final inshore race in the finishing harbour of The Hague? Bekking's Team Brunel left the stage of the 13th edition of the race around the world with a clear start-finish victory. As a result, "the yellows" also prevailed in the battle for third place on the podium in the Inshore classification against their compatriots from Simeon Tienpont's Team AkzoNobel, which, as in the overall classification, only remains in fourth place in the harbour race classification. Charles Caudrelier's Dongfeng Race Team had already won this inshore classification ahead of Mapfre and was able to shine one last time on Sunday with second place.
The eleventh harbour race was anything but boring: with the duel between the two Dutch teams for the still undecided third place and the duel of the "basement children" between David Witt's Team Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag and Dee Caffari's Team Turn the Plastic, the final served up the excitement it had promised. Both Team Brunel and Turn the Tide on Plastic managed to improve in the inshore standings on the last day of the race around the world, which lasted more than eight months. Both were able to overtake the crews ahead of them before this harbour race - tied on points, but with the higher number of better places.
Team AkzoNobel had fluffed the start and got better and better as the race progressed, but Charles Caudrelier's crew defended their second place to the finish and were the boat that Team Brunel needed between themselves and AkzoNobel to overtake their compatriots in the harbour race standings. David Witt's Team Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag put themselves out of the penultimate place in the inshore classification, getting stuck at the buoy as they rounded the third mark and, after a minute-long battle to clear, were unable to make up enough ground, although Caffari's Team Turn the Tide was penalised with a penalty that also cost them some time. This time it was the team of the only female skipper in the 13th edition of the Volvo Ocean Race that prevailed after a lot of bad luck in previous legs, moved up one place in the final classification of the short races and was able to hand over the red lantern of the tail light to Witt's crew in the last few metres.
An already legendary clip of the Dongfeng Race Team's victory in the 13th edition of the Volvo Ocean Race! Concentrated emotions to commemorate a memorable race...
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
