Volvo Ocean Race: Daryl Wislang hopes to see a Kiwi boat in next edition

By the time the next Volvo Ocean Race begins in 2021, it will have been a decade since a vessel flying the New Zealand flag took on the race around the world.

Two-time reigning champion Daryl Wislang thinks that's long enough.

Wislang, whose DongFeng Race Team won the 13th edition of the race on Monday morning (NZ time), was one of nine Kiwis taking part in the 2017-18 event, and one of five in with a chance to claim the title on the final leg from Gothenburg to the Hague.

"It'd be great to have a New Zealand team in the race," Wislang said. "It's been a while since that, and I'm sure Pete (Burling) and Blair (Tuke) have got a taste for it, so they'll be keen to get back into it. It'd be awesome to have a New Zealand flagged boat out in the race."

DongFeng (Wislang and Stu Bannatyne) went into the final leg of the 45,000 nautical mile (83340km) race tied for first place with MAPFRE (Tuke and Louis Sinclair) and Team Brunel (Burling), making it a winner-take-all finale.

Around the midway point of the leg, the fleet were forced to make a decision of which way to sail around an exclusion zone. DongFeng went east down the longer route hugging the coastline, while MAPFRE and Brunel went west.

Early on, it looked as though DongFeng had made the wrong call as they fell over 50 nautical miles behind MAPFRE and Brunel on the live tracker. However, the closer they got to the Hague, the smaller the gap became.

In the end, DongFeng caught the breeze and, not having to gybe around the final turn marker, rode it straight to the finish line.

For Tuke and Burling, whose crews finished second and third overall respectively, it wasn't the result they were hoping for, but both were pleased to have been in the position to win the event in the first place.

Tuke and Burling raced together to win Olympic gold in 2016 and were part of the America's Cup winning Team New Zealand crew in 2017, and Tuke told CNN he'd probably want to team up with Burling if they did the race again.

"It's been fun to race against each other, but next time I think we'll roll together."

With Wislang hinting at a possible Kiwi recruitment drive, that might just happen. However, with the next edition being held in the same year as the next America's Cup, it may have to wait one more cycle.

Volvo Ocean Race standings

1. DongFeng Race Team (Daryl Wislang, Stu Bannatyne) - 73 points
2. MAPFRE (Blair Tuke, Louis Sinclair) - 70
3. Team Brunel (Peter Burling) - 69
4. AkzoNobel (Brad Farrand, Justin Ferris) - 59
5. Vestas 11th Hour Racing (Tony Mutter) - 39
6. Sun Hung Kai/Scallywag* (no Kiwis) - 32
7. Turn The Tide On Plastic* (Bianca Cook) - 32

* - the final in-port race will decide final positioning for teams tied on points.