Volvo OR - Smoking into Cape Town

by Lizzie Green, Volvo OR Media on 1 Dec 2005 It is not the leaders, ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson), who are ‘smoking in’ towards the finish, it is the chasing pack.

With just 242 miles to go to the finish, it should have a stress free run in for Sanderson and his boys, but it seems that Mike Sanderson’s team has been dealt a very unfortunate weather forecast for their approach to Cape Town and Sanderson is afraid that the weather gods will be dealing out as much as 10 knots less to his team on ABN AMRO ONE.

‘So yet again we are going to have them all smoke in on us... but I am a firm believer that what comes around will go around. Even though we have seen a big lead get eaten away at by just having a weather wall in front of us, I am sure that by the end of this 8 month long regatta it will all average out, and yet again, it will be the people who have the fastest, best prepared, best sailed boat that will win the Volvo Ocean Race. ‘

Sanderson’s team has to watch out for the ‘kids’ as they have nicknamed their team mates on ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse) in second place, who in turn have to keep an eye on third placed Brasil 1 (Torben Grael). Only Ericsson (Neal McDonald) poses no threat as they race their boat gently towards the finish unable to power the boat up due to the damage sustained yesterday.

By this time tomorrow the winner of leg one should be safely tied up to the dock in Cape Town, but, in the meantime, the position reports are going to be very exciting as we watch the crews giving up miles just to stay in between their competitors and the finish line. Watching from afar and rather enviously is the team on Sunergy and Friends. ‘It is a little disheartening to see that the leaders will start to arrive in Cape Town sometime in the next 24 hours or so. They have had a dream run, which we have envied from afar,’ wrote Campbell Field today.

LEG ONE DAY 19, 30.11.05, 2200 GMT POSITION REPORT
YACHT Latitude Longitude DTF SMG DTL DTLC TLPTS ETA RPTD OVERALL
1 ABN1 36 22.37S 014 33.71E 00242 19.3 00000 +00000 10.5 01/12/05 10:27:__ 11.5 1
2 ABN2 36 09.27S 011 49.82E 00353 18.4 00111 -00004 8.0 01/12/05 17:05:__ 9.5 4
3 BRA1 35 59.72S 009 49.52E 00443 20.1 00201 +00006 7.5 01/12/05 21:20:__ 10.5 2
4 ERIC 36 50.00S 005 35.60E 00653 15.6 00411 -00021 7.0 02/12/05 18:02:__ 10.5 2
5 SUNF 32 05.26S 027 58.21W 02319 09.0 02077 -00084 4.5 11/12/05 15:35:__ 4.5 5
6 MOVI 37 07.24N 008 31.60W - - - - - - - -
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, 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

TLPTS: total leg points to date inc. scoring gate points if yacht maintains current position

RPTD: Race points to date inc. in-port race points, scoring gate points and leg points the yacht would score if yacht maintains current position.

OVERALL: position in race overall if yacht maintains current position.