Nine years after his boat sunk at the same stage and a competing team rescued his crew, Dutchman Bouwe Bekking emerged triumphant yesterday when Team Brunel won the transatlantic seventh leg in the Volvo Ocean Race.

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His Team Brunel challengers edged out Spanish rivals MAPFRE by just 22 minutes after nine days and 11 hours at sea, having set out from Newport, Rhode Island for the Portuguese capital of Lisbon, 2,800 nautical miles away.

The result offers a slim chance that Bekking, 51, could win the race at the seventh time of asking after first contesting it in 1985-86.

Team Brunel now lie six points behind overall race leaders, Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, who could only finish fifth in the stage, with two legs to sail.

The near flawless performance will also help Bekking forget the day in May 2006 when he was forced to order the abandonment of his boat, Movistar, in that year’s race after it started taking on water.

Movistar eventually sunk to the bottom of the Atlantic never to be recovered and a rival team, ABN AMRO TWO, rescued Bekking’s shaken crew.

Bekking was understandably more focused on the here and now at dawn on Wednesday after he and his veteran Australian navigator, Andrew Cape, steered Team Brunel to their second leg triumph of this 12th edition of the 41-year-old off-shore event. They also won leg two from Cape Town to Abu Dhabi. 

“We sailed a tremendous leg but just at the end when there was no wind, it was getting a bit gnarly,” Bekking said. “However, we pulled it off.”

Behind the leading two, Dongfeng Race Team (China) lost out in an even closer battle for third spot with Team Alvimedica (Turkey/ USA) by 55 seconds.