‘Almost on the home straight’ in Volvo OR

by Lizzie Green on 30 Nov 2005 A shower, a beer and a shave, are some of the things the crews are now focussing on as Cape Town draws nearer.

‘Every topic has been covered extensively from a variety of angels as we near the finish,’ wrote Simon Fisher (ABN AMRO TWO) tonight. ‘Everyone is in need of a little rest and relaxation including our boat. The job list grows ever longer as time goes on too. Not only with stuff we have broken, but also stuff we need to improve before we head into the Southern Ocean,’ he added.

With a shade over 600 nautical miles to go before they see the welcome sight of Table Mountain, the crew onboard ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson) are pushing the boat as hard as ever, maintaining a high speed of 18.4 knots, over two knots faster than their nearest rival, ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse).

Even Ericsson (Neal McDonald) with their canting keel fixed in the centre, is managing 14 knots, but they have lost a lot of ground and are now 360 nautical miles behind the leader.

Brasil 1 (Torben Grael) is now nearly 100 nm ahead of them in third position, while Sunergy and Friends (Grant Wharington) brings up the rear now 1865 nm out of touch.

LEG ONE DAY 18, 22.11.05, 2200 GMT POSITION REPORT
Yacht Latitude Longitude DTF CMG SMG DTL DTLC LPTS ETA Overall
1 ABN1 36 07.45S 006 30.53E 00602 103 18.4 00000 +00000 7.0 01/12/05 06:27:__ 1
2 ABN2 36 18.57S 003 27.91E 00749 117 16.2 00147 -00020 6.0 01/12/05 18:31:__ 4
3 BRA1 35 53.28S 001 02.80E 00864 107 14.5 00262 -00022 5.0 02/12/05 05:39:__ 2
4 ERIC 35 40.56S 000 59.04W 00962 100 14.0 00360 -00021 4.0 02/12/05 18:39:__ 2
5 SUNF 29 05.86S 029 52.19W 02467 170 10.0 01865 -00074 3.0 10/12/05 18:21:__ 5
6 MOVI 37 07.64N 008 31.80W - - - - - - - -
7 POTC 38 41.54N 009 24.95W - - - - - - - -

ABN1 ABN AMRO ONE
ABN2 ABN AMRO TWO
BRA1 Brasil 1
SUNF Sunergy and Friends
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.
http://www.volvooceanrace.org/racedatacentre/positionmaps/