Sailing: Sunergy profits from risk

A DARING piece of navigation by Dutch skipper Roy Heiner paid off when his boat, Brunel Sunergy, secured second place in the fifth leg of the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race yesterday.

The yacht completed the 6,670 miles from Auckland to Sao Sebastiao in Brazil, via the Southern Ocean and Cape Horn, more than three days behind Paul Cayard's EF Language. But this hardly mattered to a crew that had recorded two last places and two next-to-lasts in the previous four legs.

Amid the noise of an enthusiastic welcome, Heiner spoke of his brave decision to go to the east of the Falkland Islands after rounding Cape Horn, a move which took Brunel Sunergy from sixth to second. "We started looking at going round the Falkland Islands before we got to Cape Horn. We expected one of the other guys to do it but they all followed each other," he said.

"We thought there was a realistic chance of wind all the way through. It was a long way round but the only way to sail that part of the leg."