Praise where praise is due

Frank Coles, president, Inmarsat Maritime presents
Hamish Hooper with the award (Paul Todd/VOR)

The time has come to look back on the last leg and give praise where praise is due.

As we know, the winner of leg 1 was Team Telefónica. After the prize-giving hosted at the V&A waterfront, the Spanish skipper and Olympic gold medalist Iker Martínez said: “Obviously we’re very happy to have won. It’s always very nice to win, and the first leg is the most important.”

His reference to the importance of winning the first leg is that history has proved that time and time again, the winner of the first leg often wins the overall event.

Media award
It will be interesting to see if the same thing is true of the Inmarsat Media Award.

The nominees shortlisted for this years Leg 1 award were Groupama sailing team’s Yann Riou, Amory Ross of PUMA Ocean Racing and Hamish Hooper from CAMPER.

As the three MCMs gathered on the stage, the audience was shown a selection of the footage that the MCMs had shot.

High standard
Frank Coles, president of Inmarsat Maritime was on hand to present the award. Mr Coles gave praise to all the MCMs and the standard of the media. He was even more impressed with how they all work from such a small and uncomfortable space, tucked under the dark decks.

The award was finally given to Hamish Hooper of CAMPER. He had captured crashing waves, on-board injuries and even a dive to free rope from the keel.

Among the highlights of Hooper’s coverage was the mid-sea surgery to bowman Mike Pammenter, who lost his front tooth and split his lip after being washed into the rigging by a wave.

Front teeth
“I guess I should thank Mike for losing his front teeth - I was there to film it,” Mike said.

Congratulations to Hamish as we look forward to more great footage from all the MCMs on Leg 2

Mark Covell