Canadian sailor Derek Hatfield captured third place in the first ocean sprint of the Velux 5 Oceans event on Saturday.
The Nova Scotia native arrived in Cape Town, South Africa following 33 gruelling days at sea.
Hatfield, the oldest skipper in the fleet at 57-years of age, completed 7,932 nautical miles at an average speed of 9.74 knots in 22 hours and 37 minutes. Problems with his autopilot meant Derek did not sleep inside his boat once during ocean sprint one, just in case something went wrong with the boat’s steering.
“All those hard times of the last month are going to disappear pretty quickly now! It’s been a good leg though, not my best ever but I am very happy with third. The first two weeks of the race I found very difficult. I really missed the children and I had a hard time getting motivated. I was still getting to know the boat but I think I know her pretty well now and I have some ideas about how to go quicker on the next leg.”
Ocean sprint one winner Brad Van Liew arrived in Cape Town six days ahead of Derek last Sunday, while second placed Zbigniew ‘Gutek’ Gutkowski arrived on Wednesday.
This was the first of five legs that make up the 30,000 nautical mile round the world race.
