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‘It’s electric’ ABN Amro 1 - Volvo OR

by Lizzie Green on 13 Jan 2006
VOR3477a2 Volvo Ocean Race http://www.volvooceanrace.com
The Volvo Ocean Race fleet has had an action packed night with movistar (Bouwe Bekking) overtaking Pirates of the Caribbean (Paul Cayard), to sail into third place. Paul Cayard and his team are disappointed by this loss, but have had the greater problem of finding a crack in the keel support structure.

Water was coming into the boat from the cracks but the situation was and still is manageable. The pirates reduced sail area and slowed the boat down to make a full assessment of the damage. Pictures and video were then sent to Farr Yacht Design where they quickly reviewed drawings of how the area was designed. It was decided that the damage was superficial and the pirates could get back up to speed.

The team is taking all precautions necessary for any eventuality and are sailing the yacht at 80% of its potential at the moment, as they carry on monitoring the problem and let the crew rest after their long night.

Bouwe Bekking is very happy to move up into third place but has had his fair share of drama on deck, as he explained this morning, ‘The sailing in breeze is becoming now a routine, putting the fears of breaking anything a bit more behind me, but it still is there. Like last night, a sickening crushing noise came from our primary winch, which is driving the spinnaker sheet. The carbon fibre drum is cracked and the winch ceased completely. Imagine this winch can lift four Volvo cars. We have three identical winches onboard, so most likely as soon the breeze drops we will replace the broken winch by the mainsheet winch, and use a smaller winch to operate the mainsheet.’

The team on ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson) has been watching their lead reduce daily as the fleet gets back into the groove, yet Mike was still raving about the Volvo Open 70’s today in a radio interview with Race Headquarters.

‘It’s been fantastic and these boats are just electric down here, there is no doubt about it. It’s cold and exciting, everything in the brochure for a Volvo 70 down south that’s for sure! We have been throttle back a little bit as us and the kids have the only clean slate out here and it’s made us very superstitious. There’s a lot of touching wood out here.’

Knut Frostad, the watch leader aboard Brasil 1 (Torben Grael) has also been getting excited about Southern Ocean sailing and the potential of catching ING Real Estate Brunel (Grant Wharington). ‘This is not how I remember my last few trips through the Southern Ocean. The conditions could be mistaken for trade wind sailing, Sunny blue skies and nice 15 to 20 knots, reaching conditions. It is fast easy sailing, the stuff that they advertise in the Volvo Ocean race brochure! But hey! We were also promised huge waves and ice, well maybe later.

‘Brasil 1 is in great shape after our little pit stop. Thanks again to our shore crew who did a fantastic job of putting our little ‘stock car ‘back together again. Now I know how it feels for a Nascar driver to stand in the pits and watch while the others keep racing while the car is being fixed. It feels good to get back out on the track again to try and score some points. With some good luck we might even catch someone, although it would be the same type of luck needed to win the lottery!’

LEG TWO DAY 11, 12.01.06, 1600 GMT POSITION REPORT
YACHT LAT LONG DTF SMG 24 Hour Run 24 Hour Speed DTL DTLC SGPTS LPTS TLPTS RPTD ETA OVERALL
1 ABN1 42 31.51S 096 11.18E 02450 17.9 486 20.2 00000 +00000 3.5 7.0 10.5 25.5 19/01/06 __:__:__ 1
2 ABN2 42 06.82S 091 35.06E 02644 21.1 517 21.5 00194 +00019 3 6.0 9.0 21.0 20/01/06 __:__:__ 2
3 MOVI 41 41.27S 088 57.68E 02756 21.5 509 21.2 00306 +00021 2 5.0 7.0 13.0 21/01/06 __:__:__ 4
4 POTC 42 22.72S 087 24.35E 02830 18.4 392 16.3 00380 -00002 2.5 4.0 6.5 11.5 21/01/06 __:__:__ 6
5 AUS1 41 41.32S 069 32.52E 03624 14.7 279 11.6 01174 -00016 0 3.0 3.0 8.0 27/01/06 __:__:__ 7
6 BRA1 40 26.82S 039 25.53E 04977 17.8 414 17.2 02527 +00002 0 2.0 2.0 14.5 02/02/06 __:__:__ 3
7 ERIC 33 57.56S 025 37.90E - - - - - - - - - - - -

ABN1 ABN AMRO ONE
ABN2 ABN AMRO TWO
AUS1 ING Real Estate Brunel
BRA1 Brasil 1
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

SGPTS: points scored at scoring gates on this leg to date
LPTS: projected leg points
TLPTS: projected overall leg points including actual points from scoring gates
RPTD: projected overall points including actual points from scoring gates
OVERALL: projected position in race overall if yacht maintains current position
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