{"id":66075,"date":"2017-12-19T02:07:48","date_gmt":"2017-12-19T07:07:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/?p=66075"},"modified":"2023-05-06T21:29:06","modified_gmt":"2023-05-07T01:29:06","slug":"the-chuny-effect","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/racing\/the-chuny-effect\/","title":{"rendered":"The Chuny Effect"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n\n\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\t\t\"vestas <\/div>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t

Leg 02, Lisbon to Cape Town, day 00, on board Vestas 11th Hour. Photo by Martin Keruzore\/Volvo Ocean Race. 05 November, 2017. wet and windy start <\/h3>\n\t\t\t\n
\n Vestas 11th Hour\u2019s Mark Towill enjoys the ride\nwith Volvo Ocean Race six-timer and last-minute\nfill-in Roberto Berm\u00fadez de Castro on the\nhelm in the early, high-speed days of Leg 2.<\/span>\n Martin Keruzore<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\t <\/figcaption>\n <\/section>\n\t\t\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s a Volvo Ocean Race team director to do when one of his starters is put on the injured reserve before the start of a crucial 7,000-mile leg from Lisbon to Cape Town? Simple: Find the guy who can practically do it in his sleep.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

For Vestas 11th Hour Racing\u2019s Mark Towill, the search to fill teammate Phil Harmer\u2019s sea boots led to Spaniard Roberto Berm\u00fadez de Castro, a six-time veteran and two-time winner of the race who happened to be looking for a ride to Cape Town. Weeks earlier, before the race start, Berm\u00fadez de Castro parted ways with Team Akzo Nobel and was hanging around Lisbon as an eager free agent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cChuny was very keen to do the leg,\u201d says Towill. \u201cTo get a guy with his experience was a no-brainer.\u201d Vestas 11th Hour navigator Simon Fisher won the previous edition with Berm\u00fadez de Castro on Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, but the rest of the team had yet to experience the quiet efficiency of the guy nicknamed Chuny. \u201cHe\u2019s very focused on the performance but able to keep things light,\u201d says Towill.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

There were many moments in the 19-day oceanic sprint when Berm\u00fadez de Castro\u2019s experience helped his teammates keep pace with leg winners Mapfre and runner-up Dongfeng.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe has fantastic feel for the boat, when to change sails and when to shift the stack,\u201d says Towill. \u201cAt the beginning of the leg, he kept saying in his Spanish accent, \u2018It can even happen in the best families,\u2019 when he was talking about overtrimming the sails. At first, I didn\u2019t quite understand, but I caught on, and it became a little joke. We\u2019d ask, \u2018Best families?\u2019 meaning, \u2018Is the sail overtrimmed?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n

A little levity on board goes a long way, says Towill, and in this department Berm\u00fadez de Castro\u2019s contributions were noticeable. \u201cNo matter what the conditions were, there were an abundance of smiles, and that has an impact on the speed,\u201d he says. \u201cWe saw a lot of downwind and reaching, and he was solid on the wheel. He always had the polar percentage with triple digits.\u201d<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chuny Bermudez, the guy who can practically sail a Volvo 65 in his sleep.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23104,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"BS_author_type":"BS_author_is_guest","BS_guest_author_name":"Dave Reed","BS_guest_author_url":"","hydra_display_date":"20171219","hydra_display_updated":false,"_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":"159","_yoast_wpseo_metadesc":"Chuny Bermudez, the guy who can practically sail a Volvo 65 in his sleep.","_yoast_wpseo_title":"The Chuny Effect %%sep%% %%sitename%%","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","arc_story_id":"AJHIZGDVRZFVEYPCSD4L55SMXA","arc_website_url":"chuny-effect\/","custom_permalink":"","arc_subtype":"right-sidebar","arc_exclude_from_feeds":false,"sponsored":false,"sponsored_label":"Sponsored Content","sponsored_display_label":false,"sponsored_image":0,"post_right_rail":true,"post_right_rail_ad_1":true,"post_right_rail_ad_2":true,"post_right_rail_ad_3":false,"post_right_rail_ad_4":false,"post_right_rail_recirc":true,"fixed_anchor_ad":true,"post_top_ad":true,"post_off_ramp":true,"post_taboola":false,"labels":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[159],"tags":[191,178,767,304,380],"class_list":["post-66075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-racing","tag-news","tag-sailboat-racing","tag-team-vestas-11th-hour-racing","tag-volvo-ocean-race","tag-volvo-ocean-race-2017-2018"],"acf":[],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66075"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66075\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sailingworld.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}