Yachting: Swiss sailor gets champagne welcome

By ROSALEEN MacBRAYNE

Swiss sailor Bernard Stamm had barely crossed the line at the end of the latest gruelling leg of the Around Alone yacht race yesterday when he lost steering on his 18m Bobst Group-Amor Lux.

After a long night battling atrocious weather and heavy seas, the 38-year-old made it to Tauranga from Cape Town in record-breaking time, well ahead of 10 other international competitors.

But 50m past the finish, in 3.5m swells soon after 11.30am, the tiller came off in his hand.

A team of race officials came on board to help to take the sails down and the boat was towed into the Tauranga bridge marina for a champagne welcome.

The steering troubles had started on Wednesday night with a loose rudder, but the skipper managed some makeshift repairs.

Stamm admitted that the only time he had felt nervous during the 7000-nautical-mile third leg of the five-part race was close to the finish.

He had had 36 hours without sleep and had earlier hit a whale during a "very rough" patch just before rounding Cape Reinga.

"There was no damage for the ship, but for the whale - she was alive, but very sad," he said.

Crossing the notorious Southern Ocean and the Tasman Sea was "okay" compared with the last stretch, a tired Stamm told a press conference on shore.

Sailing downwind across the remote Southern Ocean, his boat reached a top speed of 31 knots.

"We never stopped surfing. It was very good."

But in New Zealand waters he was travelling upwind in rough seas.

"The waves were very high and very short. It is good to be on land now," Stamm said with a grin.

The front of the Swiss yacht suffered superficial damage from plunging into the waves.

The skipper, has taken line honours during daylight in all three legs so far of the epic eight-month race.

Yesterday, he chopped almost two days off the previous record from South Africa to New Zealand, set by Italian sailor Giovanni Soldini, who arrived in Auckland, four years ago.

Stamm's time from Cape Town to Tauranga, 100 miles farther, was 25 days, 12 hours, 24 minutes and 43 seconds.

Among the crowds waiting in drenching rain to welcome the Swiss sailor were his wife, Catherine, and 4-year-old daughter, Chloe, who arrived in New Zealand last week.

Second-placed Solidaires, skippered by Frenchman Thierry Dubois, is expected in Tauranga early tomorrow.

Meanwhile, Simone Bianchetti's Italian entry, Tiscali, is vying for third place with New Zealander Graham Dalton on Tauranga-built Hexagon.

Both are scheduled to finish on Sunday.

The fourth leg of the endurance race, from Tauranga to Salvador in Brazil, begins on February 9.