Success after €20m, 39,000 miles, nine ports and eight months

Tens of thousands gathered in Galway at the weekend to witness the final race of the Volvo Ocean Race that staged its finale in Ireland after 39,000 miles and nine ports around the world.

After placing second into Galway last Tuesday morning, Franck Cammas’ French entry Groupama barely needed to compete in Saturday’s Discover Ireland In-Port Race off Salthill.

Cammas lifted the overall winner’s trophy on Saturday evening, after surrendering a podium place for that afternoon’s race, before passing the prize amongst his team, including Derrynane professional sailor Damian Foxall.

In the space of eight months, Cammas had defeated a strong field of four other new boats plus a wild card entry from the last race three years ago. Although the latter had ambitions solely limited to mixing it for the newer designs, any of the other five boats had, on paper, the ingredients for a winning campaign.

As the eventual winner, Groupama can point to the proven mix of starting early with a budget and crew in place. Undisclosed by any of the team, a competitive team is generally agreed to need about €20m over a three-year project.

Others were also well resourced.

Former Green Dragon skipper Ian Walker had the benefit of generous backing from Abu Dhabi that led to a strong crew line-up including past race winner Justin Slattery from Fermoy.

Despite their strength, the team was late to launch, though this was a minor drawback compared to the hull breaks that followed in the race as well as being dismasted barely six hours into the start of leg one.

Walker’s boat was shipped for two legs and as a consequence, placed fifth overall on Saturday.

Ken Read’s Puma boat was also shipped for one leg after being dismasted. But a string recovery meant the American could build steadily and held an outside chance at overall victory as late as the penultimate leg.

Former race winner Mike Sanderson led an 11th hour project on Team Sanya using Telefonica Blue from three years ago. But boat breakages meant missing three legs and his Chinese-flagged entry was unable to disrupt the faster, latest generation boats.

Apart from Cammas, only two others sailed the entire course unaided by shipping. Although suffering from a lack of a critical speed edge, Chris Nicholson’s Camper with Emirates Team New Zealand persevered and was rewarded with a final-leg victory into Galway and second overall.

But the biggest shock of all, was the fall from grace of one-time overall race leader Iker Martinez on Telefonica.

Having won the first three legs, the Spaniard ended the race off the podium.