ABN Amro One takes over lead on Leg 3 Volvo OR

by Lizzie Green, Volvo OR Media on 14 Feb 2006 As the yachts in the Volvo Ocean Race head into their third day at sea, the crews can look forward to some respite ahead. The past 38 hours have been stressful for the boats and the teams sailing them, with high winds and rough seas. The yachts reached the Tasman Sea around 1900 GMT Sunday night after navigating through the many small islands of the Bass Strait.

Movistar (Bouwe Bekking) and ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson) are having a fierce fight at the front of the fleet, with only 18 nautical miles between them at the latest position report. Movistar was leading the pack east throughout the night, only losing out to its Dutch rival this morning. These two yachts are sandwiched between Brasil 1 (Torben Grael) the yacht furthest north and Pirates of the Caribbean (Paul Cayard) furthest south.

The Pirates are being accompanied by Ericsson (Neal McDonald) and ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse) in this southerly course but all three teams have had less breeze in the past six hours than the more northerly teams forcing them to lose some mileage.

Mike Sanderson described how his crew has been through their entire sail inventory in the past few days as they wove their way out of Bass Strait. Last night they were finally able to bear away and begin broad reaching across to the Cook Strait and Wellington. The team is comparing leg three with a Sydney Hobart race due to the speed of the Volvo 70.

Mike explained, ‘Even though we are sticking to our watch rotations the boys are living in their wet weather gear 24 hours a day and we are just cat napping, so that we can be on deck in a heart beat.’

The Pirates on the Black Pearl are happily getting into the groove today after having a few problems with their sail combination earlier in the leg. The bowsprit tack lines have been fixed now allowing them to change from one spinnaker to another more efficiently. The yacht has pulled away from the two nearest rivals Ericsson and ABN AMRO TWO in the past six hours. They have extended their lead by one nautical mile on the Dutch boat and by three on Ericsson.

The mood is less than happy on ABN AMRO TWO in comparison today, as they struggle with a few problems of their own. Simon Fisher, the navigator onboard relates the feelings of the crew, ‘I think it would be fair to say that our first 24 hours at sea in leg 3 has been nothing short of horrendous. Sometimes you feel you just can't get a break, and that is exactly how I'm feeling right now.’

After trailing the fleet out of the Port Phillip Bay, they ripped their main forcing them to reef to repair it. They then lost power onboard, leaving them scrambling around in the dark. Finally Johnny (Gerd Jan Poortman) cut his head open after getting swept down the deck in a really nasty wave. All these problems have now been fixed, including Johnny’s head with a couple of stitches and some rest in his bunk.

The weather looks set to improve for the slower southerly yachts though, as they finally extend far enough away from Tasmania to escape its lingering influence. As the wind fills in from the south west it will reach them first allowing them to pick up the pace on the yachts to the north of them.

This good news may rally the crew onboard Ericsson this afternoon, as Neal McDonald tells of a devastating day on the blue boat. ‘At first light we saw the Pirates to the north of us and only marginally ahead - our courses converged and we looked as though we were going a little better than them. We both had to do a couple of sail changes as conditions got lighter.

‘And then our world fell apart. We simply watched the Pirates sail away from us slowly but surely, until they were 12 miles ahead at the next position report. This is a cruel sport. We tried everything, eventually stopping the boat and backing it up to see if we had anything on the keel or rudder. To add insult to injury the leaders appear to be stay in just a bit more wind than us. The rich get richer and we were never really that well off to begin with!’

LEG THREE DAY 2, 13.2.06, 1600 GMT POSITION REPORT
YACHT Latitude Longitude DTF SMG 24 Hour Run 24 Hour Speed DTL DTLC PTLPTS POP OVERALL
1 ABN1 40 08.86S 157 35.00E 00815 18.9 471 19.6 00000 +00000 7.0 39.5 1
2 MOVI 40 14.18S 157 10.99E 00832 16.9 453 18.9 00017 -00012 6.0 24.0 3
3 POTC 40 25.70S 156 42.48E 00852 16.6 434 18.1 00037 -00013 5.0 21.5 4
4 ABN2 40 21.88S 156 39.00E 00856 16.6 440 18.3 00041 -00014 4.0 29.0 2
5 BRA1 39 40.89S 156 38.35E 00861 15.2 432 18.0 00046 -00021 3.0 19.0 5
6 ERIC 40 20.15S 156 22.15E 00868 16.0 422 17.6 00053 -00016 2.0 16.5 6

ABN1 ABN AMRO ONE
ABN2 ABN AMRO TWO
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

PLPTS: projected leg points
PTP: projected overall points
OVERALL: projected position in race overall if yacht maintains current position