Yachting: Northland sailor skippers record-breaker

Mike Sanderson celebrates winning the first leg of the Volvo Ocean Race in Cape Town. Picture / Reuters

The Northland yachting community was still in celebration mode today after one of their own stamped his mark on the international stage yet again, this time as a skipper in the Volvo Ocean Round the World yacht race.

Mike Sanderson, who learned his trade sailing at the Onerahi Yacht Club, skippered ABN Amro One to a win on the first leg of eight, setting a new world record for covering an incredible 546 miles in 24 hours during the leg from Vigo in Spain to Cape Town in South Africa.

It is a significant achievement for Sanderson who is now one of the most renowned blue water sailors in the world and is already being touted as the favourite to take out this year's Volvo Ocean Race title.

The Volvo Ocean Race this year features nine offshore legs, over 31,250 nautical miles, and an inshore race at each of the main stopover ports.

Sanderson said the success of the innovative design of the two ABN Amro boats competing in the event, with ABN Amro Two coming in second behind Sanderson's crew, had put the entire team in high spirits for the rest of the race.

But Sanderson's opening leg victory did not come without drama after the boat was damaged on the opening night of the race and the crew battled a fire on board a few days later.

"It is unbelievable to be here. Team ABN Amro has worked so hard at this," Sanderson wrote from Cape Town.

"We were told by our boat designer Juan Kouyoumdjian that we would average 16 knots of boat speed on this leg and we all laughed. In fact we have averaged 15.95 knots and put in nearly 400 miles almost every day of this leg, which is just incredible," he said.

Leg one of the 2005-2006 race presented crews with one of the most dramatic starts in the history of the race. Severe conditions during the first 36 hours caused substantial damage to much of the fleet.

Sanderson's boat lost a port-side steering pedestal.

Having kept the boat in one piece and experiencing some exhilarating downwind sailing, Sanderson first pulled into the lead on Wednesday, November 16, and held that lead through the Doldrums, before rounding the scoring gate at Fernando de Noronha and collecting 3.5 points.

Now lying in pole position with 11.5 points, Sanderson said they will be looking to build upon their performance when they embark on the second leg to Melbourne on January 2, which will see them encountering the notoriously harsh Southern Ocean.

"I am not sure if I would call it fun, as it has been incredibly high stress, but it was just amazing to come in and see Table Mountain. It is always a pleasure to see the table and we are all really looking forward to our time here," he said.

"We have been working so hard on this for so long and we have had our ups and downs. We had to tough it out for the in-port race in Spain but we believed in the boat, and this is huge, really huge, as we always wanted to be the first into Cape Town.

"The boat did an amazing job and was just on fire. We threw everything at it; we battled against bad weather, broke the boat on the first night and even had a fire on board - we quite literally had everything. We love this boat and have always loved this boat, it is our baby. It has looked after us so well but I am not sure if we looked after it as well."

- NORTHERN ADVOCATE