Volvo Ocean Race: Stanjek's dream of the Ocean Race shattered

At first, the disappointment went through Robert Stanjek like a hot knife through a full butter churn: his dream of taking part in the Volvo Ocean Race was over! Team Brunel's skipper Bouwe Bekking has surprisingly decided in favour of neither the Berlin Olympic sixth-placed sailor nor his rival, the Dutch Olympic fourth-placed Pieter-Jan Postma, when filling the last vacant job in his sailing team for the most famous crew race around the world.

Instead, Bekking wants to bring an experienced and already victorious circumnavigator onto the Brunel boat. "I can understand Bouwe's decision, even if it is difficult for me," Stanjek told YACHT online after the phone call with Bekking, "but of course I am disappointed, because I have put a lot of energy, work and time into this challenge over the last few months. It was a very good time in which I was able to work with an outstanding team and learnt a lot. Now I'm keeping both fingers crossed for this team for the race. I will continue on my own path in professional sailing with the same vigour and probably as a better sailor."

With Bekking's unexpected decision, the long-awaited long-distance duel between Stanjek and Postma for the last remaining vacancy in Team Brunel came to a sobering end. Only the skipper himself knows whether it was ever a real duel. But both Stanjek and Postma have accepted the decision. Stanjek knows: "We don't have the experience of racing around the world, and of course we will be compared with all the available forces on the market in the over-30 selection. You can't carve out experience for yourself, you have to acquire it. I would have loved to have done that, but it wasn't meant to be this time."

This week, the former star boat sailor Stanjek wants to build on the offshore experience he has gained over the past two years, his initial successes such as the Swan 60 class victory in the Fastnet Race 2013 or second place in the Nord Stream Race 2012 and his intensive apprenticeship with Team Brunel. "I'm starting the Nord Stream Race for the third time next week with Tim Kröger's Team Europe and I'm really looking forward to flipping the switch from training to competition." The race will take six Swan 60 teams from St. Petersburg via Helsinki to Warnemünde, where a few show races are planned for the big swans after they cross the finish line on Whitsun weekend.