Velux 5 Oceans Race: Bernard Stamm Arrives As Overall Champion

BILBAO, Spain, May 1, 2007 (The Boating Channel) – In an exciting finish, half of the Velux 5 Ocean racers crossed the line in the final leg of the Velux 5 Oceans race within less than one hour of each other yesterday afternoon. Swiss sailor Bernard Stamm, who has totally dominated this race almost from the start, 29,000 miles ago, completed the 3,200-mile run across the North Atlantic at 17:13:25 local time, April 30, 2007. Standing on the starboard side of his Open 60, Cheminees Poujoulat, Stamm let the autopilot guide the yacht while he waved to his family waiting aboard the committee boat.

With this victory, Stamm garnered Line Honors for Leg 3 of the Velux 5 Oceans, as well as having secured the First Place crown overall in this edition of the race.

A fleet of press and spectator boats waited in wind and rain for Stamm to complete the course. And as they greeted the triumphant skipper, they could see off in the distance the sail of Spirit of Yukoh making its way toward them.

Just 43 minutes and 20 seconds later, at 17:56:45, Kojiro Shiraishi brought his Open 60 across the finish line. During the eleven days it took both skippers to cross the Atlantic, from Norfolk, Virginia, to Bilbao, where the race first began, Shiraishi was rarely more than 100 miles behind Stamm. And they both came in days ahead of Sir Robin Knox-Johnston aboard Saga Insurance and Unai Basurko aboard Pakea.

Shiraishi was welcomed by a watery salute from local fire fighting tugs, and hundreds of race fans set off flares from around the lighthouse at the end of the Puerto Deportivo breakwater while the Japanese skipper negotiated a route through the hundreds of spectator boats that gathered to watch the spectacular arrival of two of sailing’s most outstanding skippers.

During the entire circumnavigation of Velux 5 Oceans race, Bernard Stamm spent a total of 103 days, 22 hours and 10 minutes at sea, holding a cummulative 14 day lead over Shiraishi, who completed the course after 118 days, 1 hour and 42 minutes at sea.

The tension in these final days of the event is now between the two yachts still out at sea. Knox-Johnston is almost three hundred miles ahead of Basurko and is just about 425 miles from the finish line. But Basurko took third place in the second leg, and to capture the third podium position overall Sir Robin must arrive a good 48 hours ahead of the Basque skipper. Both are currently sailing in very harsh seas, and both are being handicapped by compromised electronics. There are predictions for a southwesterly Force 8 Gale with rain and thunder, which could change everything.