Ian Walker never gets tired. At least he never admits to it. So for him to say the following, captures the momentousness of what he and his men have achieved.
"I'm absolutely shattered," he told The National, a few hours after arriving in Lorient, France, at the end of the short but punishing Volvo Ocean Race eighth leg, across the Bay of Biscay. He had skippered Azzam to a third-place finish.
Of inestimable more significance than the finish on Thursday was the fact that it sealed a historic victory. In just its second participation in the Volvo race, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing (Ador) had won the most-prestigious, most-challenging ocean-sailing race in the world.
It is, as the race head Knut Frostad suggested, arguably one of the “biggest achievements” in UAE sporting history.
“I’m mentally and physically shattered,” Walker continued. “I feel strange, a little anticlimactic. I feel as if a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. It hasn’t really sunk in yet. I need to see the results, I need to see a picture of the results and the scores so I can actually believe it, first.”
He will, because that is how he is, but he need not. Barring a disaster of epic proportions in the final leg, which would involve a last-place finish plus the imposition of penalty points, Azzam are the winners of the 2014/15 edition of the nine-month, round-the-world race even before the final leg begins. Not even Volvo organisers, who know how unlikely some late roadblock will be, were shy about declaring Azzam champion.
In true Walker style, however, one of the first things the crew did upon docking was to have a team meeting. The message? There are still two in-port races and a final leg to complete. The time for celebrations will be in Gothenburg at race’s end.
“We have to go to work tomorrow and the next day,” he said. “It sounds a bit boring but that’s what we do.”
That has been, very much, the Walker and Azzam imprint on the race. No fuss, nothing flashy, lots of head-down hard work. Frostad was not being in any way pejorative when he said: "Azzam have slowly tugged away throughout the race."
He meant it as an acknowledgement of a near-freakish consistency of results. The third-place finish in Lorient meant Azzam has finished on the podium in seven of eight legs, as well as doing exactly the same in the in-port races.
Historically, such consistency is rare. Peter Blake on the Steinlager 2 won all six legs in the 1989/90 race, the first time it had happened since 1981/82, which had only four legs. Those, however, were the days when some boats were simply better than others.
"It's incredible really," Azzam navigator Simon Fisher said. "If someone had said 'you will do this' nine months ago, I wouldn't have believed them.
“It’s almost conceivable if it’s not one-design and all the boats are different, maybe one boat is extremely dominant.
“To have done it in a fleet where all boats are equal,” he said, referring to the one-design Volvo Ocean 65, “is something really quite special and a testament to the whole team.”
The victory, the first by a British skipper, establishes Walker among the pre-eminent sailors of his generation; he already was a double Olympic silver medallist. It also represents a remarkable turnaround in fortunes after Azzam finished fifth out of six boats in their first Volvo race, in 2011/12.
The support from Abu Dhabi Tourism and Culture Authority (TCA) in the interim, Walker said, was vital. “It would’ve been very easy for them to say, ‘We were fifth and we want somebody else to run the thing.’
“But they stood by us because they understood why we came fifth and they believed we could learn from that and work together to win this race. And they were right.”
For a country already known for a maritime tradition, Walker hoped the win could be a seminal moment.
“I would hope there is a big impact in the UAE. I can’t wait to get out there. I would love to jump on a plane right now with the trophy to Abu Dhabi and share it with people who have been following the team.
“It’s amazing how big a following we have and so it’s a tremendous privilege to do this race and an even greater privilege to be on a winning team. I just want to enjoy every second of it.”
His fatigue is unlikely to prevent him from doing so.
osamiuddin@thenational.ae
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