VO65 Team Jajo

Flying the flag for The Netherlands, Team Jajo is a strong contender for a podium place in this year’s Ocean Race Sprint Cup. Led by the youngest skipper in the fleet, they took second place in the first stage of the Sprint Cup from Alicante in Spain to Mindelo in the Cape Verde Islands.

Team Background

The core crew of Team Jajo are five talented Dutch sailors, all under the age of 30, led by skipper Jelmer van Beek. Joined for The Ocean Race Sprint Cup by five more young sailors from Scotland, Spain, Poland, England and The Netherlands, the Jajo crew proved in the gruelling Leg One that they are one of the fastest VO65 teams on the water. And they’re not short on experience, either, as the other member of their crew is the ocean racing legend Bouwe Bekking, an eight-time veteran of The Ocean Race.

The Ocean Race VO65 Sprint Cup

For the first stage of the Sprint Cup the VO65s joined the IMOCA 60s, racing off a single start line in Alicante, Spain through the Gibraltar Strait and then 2,000 ocean miles along the Trade Wind route to Cape Verde. The second stage, which starts in Aarhus, Denmark, is an intensely tactical race in busy coastal waters: through the Baltic Sea to Kiel, Germany where they turn around without stopping, exit the Baltic via the Skagerrak and head down the North Sea against the prevailing winds to The Hague. The final stage is likely to be a tacking duel along the English Channel, then across the Bay of Biscay and back through the Med to the finish at Genoa, Italy.