Brunel (Grant Wharington) and ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse) have now completed leg six of the Volvo Ocean Race and are safely tied up to the dock in North Cove, New York.

After a major refit, Grant Wharington has brought a new look Brunel back to join the fleet and is happy with the increase in performance.

“It felt like doing a tough Sydney Hobart race,” he said. “We’re really happy with the boat and she is in good shape and we are pleased with the speed. Where we felt we lost out was on the tactical side rather than with a problem with the boat. Not many guys have had much sleep onboard and it was a very, very tough leg. It is very nice to beat someone on the water and great to arrive here knowing there is another boat behind us. The speed is fine, but we are just lacking in a couple areas, but we are certainly far more competitive than we have ever been.”

It was a slightly different story for the young guns on ABN AMRO TWO who have done so well in the first half of the event. Gear damage has not helped their performance, but their seventh place on this leg drops her to equal fourth place overall with Brasil 1 (Torben Grael).

“Not good,” said skipper Sebastien Josse, “we want better results, but we were a bit unfortunate. The sail damage was a big part of the problem. We went a bit offshore making our tack and we were in 35 knots of wind. Then when we took in the second reef, the deck line of the J4 broke and at the same time we were in trouble with the jib. We lost 10 or 12 miles. We turned downwind to make sure we didn’t break the battens. I’m a little bit mad, when you lose and make a mistake.

“All the gear onboard is fixed, so we won’t be taking the two hour penalty. We lost 10 miles but in a day we were back at 100 percent. We sailed very well when we did not have problems with the sails and we sailed upwind in 40 knots and were comfortable.”

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