Chilean double-handed team dedicates Portimao Global Ocean Race win

7:08 AM Mon 6 Apr 2009 GMT

'Desafio Cabo de Hornos is taken under tow after winning Leg 3 - Photo Portimao Race' Portimao Global Ocean Race

At 13:02:54 UTC on Thursday 2nd April, Felipe Cubillos and Jos? Mu?oz sailed into the record books as the first Chilean double-handed team to win a leg of a round the world race on their Class 40, Desafio Cabo de Hornos.

For the Portim?o Global Ocean Race, this breaks the monopoly held by the German team of Boris Herrmann and Felix Oehme who have won the first two legs of the event and grabbed maximum points at the scoring gates in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Oceans on Class 40 Beluga Racer. For Chile, Cubillos and Mu?oz have become national heroes and yacht racing celebrities as the first Chileans to race round Cape Horn while leading the Portim?o fleet. Within 24 hours of crossing the Portim?o Global Ocean Race Leg 3 finish line in Ilhabela, Brazil, the victorious duo were on a LAN Chile flight from S?o Paulo to Santiago and an enormous welcome from the team's Chilean fan base.

Before heading home, Cubillos took time to write a highly emotional email to his supporters in which the Chilean duo dedicated their victory. 'I could bang on to you for hours about strategy, tactics and meteorology,' wrote Cubillos. 'But what really occurred was magical.' On Wednesday 1st April the light headwinds strangling the fleet disappeared with the arrival of a cold front working up the east coast of South America. 'Originally, the wind was from the north-east,' continued Cubillos, 'blowing from Germany; then the breeze turned southerly, coming from the direction of Chile like a thousand souls all blowing us towards the finish.'

At 0400 UTC, Jeremy Salvesen and David Thomson were first to feel the new breeze with their Class 40, Team Mowgli, rapidly climbing to 10-12 knots averages. Cubillos and Mu?oz - further north than the British team in second place - felt the breeze a few hours later, closing down on Beluga Racer to just 37 miles as the breeze faded out shortly before midnight.

While Team Mowgli and Michel Kleinjans on Open 40, Roaring Forty, rode the front in 20-30 knots of wind, Desafio Cabo de Hornos and Beluga Racer stalled as the breeze vanished. 'Jos? and I never gave up,' wrote Cubillos. 'We fought for every inch, using every shift and hunting out every patch of fresh breeze however small. We were already without water and food and our diesel supply was so low that we couldn't charge the batteries, so we'd been hand steering constantly for two weeks and perhaps this was part of the reason for our victory.'

www.portimaoglobaloceanrace.com/

by Oliver Dewar

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Chilean double-handed team dedicates Portimao Global Ocean Race win

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