Volvo Ocean Race- Only four left racing

by Volvo Ocean Race Event Media on 14 Nov 2005 The roughest, toughest race on the planet is living up to it’s name as the fleet battles its way down the Portuguese coast and damage is widespread across the fleet.

The four front runners are grouped together and adrenaline is running high onboard the young Dutch boat, ABN AMRO TWO as they retain their lead for the fourth ‘sked’ in a row.

‘We were pretty stoked to have been at the head of the fleet for this part of the race in such difficult conditions,’ wrote British navigator Simon Fisher. He says there is a constant torrent of water over the decks and at time it is nearly impossible to see. They are a little bit separated to the east which means they will be the first to experience the winds easing 15 – 20 knots by tomorrow morning, perhaps making the chance of breaking the monohull 24-hour record just out of reach.

ABN AMRO ONE, 10 miles behind their team mates, wiped out their leeward steering wheel, the steering pedestal and the safety frame that goes around the wheel in a massive broach. The crew are now sailing with an emergency tiller and bailing out the back of the boat, where there is a hole in the deck where the steering pedestal once was. ‘This is seriously hardcore,’ wrote skipper Mike Sanderson (NZ) earlier today. They are approximately 185 miles north of Madeira

Sleeping, eating and generally moving around the boat in these conditions is not easy. Brasil 1, in third position 14 miles behind the leader, reported windy and fast conditions today, but under blue sky. ‘We have been working down below to keep bailing out the water from both leaky parts as well as water brought down by people in their wet weather gear,’ said navigator Adrienne Cahalan.

Neal McDonald keeps Ericsson well in touch in fourth position. ‘We are soaked through, had little sleep and lots of physical effort -a tough start to our race,’ says skipper Neal McDonald. ‘Combine that with a number of issues losing miles to the leaders you could well imagine a few grumpy ERT boys aboard today- far from it, they toughed it out with a smile.’

Further down the fleet, things are not looking so rosy. Pirates of the Caribbean (Paul Cayard) and movistar (Bouwe Bekking) are both heading towards the coast to effect repairs, while Sunergy and Friends continue to limp along bringing up the rear, 196 nm behind the leaders, while still trying to fix their broken gooseneck.

Sunergy skipper Grant Wharington reported ’We had a tough night firstly steering problem not solved yet but we think the tow angle of the rudders needs to be adjusted. It was OK until about high 20s of boat speed the leeward rudder cavitates, pretty sure we have fixed this one but we won’t know until we speed up again.

'All was going fine until about 11pm our wind speed went from low 30s to 50
plus in a squall we had R1, staysail and full main up doing mid 20s we broke
the gooseneck , also broke jib halyard so have been sailing under staysail
only since. It’s a bummer knowing that the opposition is sailing 10 to 15 kn faster and nothing we can do about it till daylight, so the deltas in the next sked (position report) will be horrific.'

'It was too dangerous to send Benny up the mast to fix the jib halyard, and we were all so knackered from the last week preparing the boat around the clock that we decided to get some rest and attack all problems in daylight. We are not sure what the fix is on the gooseneck yet but I think Barney has a
plan.'


Volvo Ocean Race Position report leg on, day 2, 1600 GMT
Yacht Latitude Longitude DTF CMG SMG DTL DTLC LPTS ETA Overall

1 ABN2 35 43.70N 016 25.97W 05899 233 20.1 00000 +00000 7.0 26/11/05 __:__:__ 1

2 ABN1 35 29.00N 015 16.45W 05909 227 19.3 00010 +00002 6.0 26/11/05 __:__:__ 4

3 BRA1 35 43.32N 015 42.25W 05913 227 19.6 00014 +00003 5.0 26/11/05 __:__:__ 2

4 ERIC 35 56.01N 015 39.53W 05926 227 19.4 00027 +00002 4.0 27/11/05 __:__:__ 3

5 MOVI 37 15.25N 011 49.51W 06081 102 08.3 00182 -00116 3.0 04/12/05 __:__:__ 5

6 POTC 38 10.35N 013 20.53W 06095 225 12.1 00196 -00035 2.0 04/12/05 __:__:__ 7

7 SUNF 38 24.18N 012 01.43W 06136 076 08.2 00237 -00133 1.0 08/12/05 __:__:__ 6

ABN1 ABN AMRO ONE
ABN2 ABN AMRO TWO
BRA1 Brasil 1
BRSU Brunel Sunergy
ERIC Ericsson Racing Team
MOVI movistar
POTC Pirates of the Caribbean

DTF: Distance to finish, CMG: Course made good, SMG: Speed made good, DTL: distance to leader, DTLC: distance to leader change; the difference between the distance from the boat to the leader taken at the time of the last six hour poll, and the distance from the boat to the leader at the previous poll, LPTS: leg points, OVERALL: position in race overall if yacht maintains current position.