Movistar nearly sinks at Cape Horn

by Lizzie Green on 2 Mar 2006 At 0315 GMT today, Bouwe Bekking reported that movistar was taking on water at a high rate and requested that the boats nearest to movistar, Brasil 1 (Torben Grael) and Ericsson Racing Team (Neal McDonald) should standby to offer immediate assistance. They were sailing in 30 – 35 knots of breeze with a jib top, small staysail and one reef in the mainsail, 242 nautical miles from the scoring gate at Cape Horn.

'We are sinking. Everybody up,' commanded Bekking as the water poured into the boat around the keel box. 'Slow the boat down, the water is coming in very fast, and close the water tight hatches,' was the command.

The water was coming in from around the top of the keel box. Within minutes the sailors were knee deep in water. The water tight hatches were closed immediately and safety gear and grab bags moved onto deck. The sail area was reduced to only the stay sail and the yacht slowed down, as the crew frantically pumped.

Bouwe Bekking’s report leaves nothing to the imagination:

'A sailor’s nightmare is sinking, and this looked like a pretty serious situation. If we had rats onboard they would have jumped off by now.

'We mobilised some people on deck to drop all the sails, and when I went downstairs again, I got a real shock. The generator box was already completely underwater, and the water had spread now through the entire mid compartment, and was close to washing over the main engine box as well. And what a mess inside, sails, sleeping bags, food bags, you can't name it, were floating around. In the mean time Spike (Peter Doriean) had collected all the safety gear and put it on deck, just to be sure.

'Capey (Andrew Cape) had already informed race-headquarters. After seeing the amount of water, I decided to ask headquarters if other boats could assist. Water and electricity don't like each other too much, so the circuit breakers were popping off all the time.

'With the personal torches on it looked like a scene that Hitchcock could only dream of. Now Chris (Nicholson) was diving underwater to connect the two emergency high capacity bilge pumps directly to the batteries, as that was the only way of assuring power and running of the pumps. What else do you do? Bail of course, like mad, but I felt it was like watching television where somebody is using one small water hose to protect his house against a raging bushfire. Even though we knew we were on the losing hand, strangely enough you don't give up.

'Then the shout, PUMPS ARE RUNNING. Now we maybe have a chance to beat the incoming flow rate, and get the level down.

'To all our big relief, this was the case. Slowly but surely, the levels went down and we got the situation under control. We have made an emergency fix on the leaking box, and the incoming flow is minimal. I’m proud of the boys, they did well, not just in this emergency situation, but also in the way that they have sailed movistar so magnificently up to that moment. We are now heading for Ushuaia (Argentina) to look at damage.'

Bekking said in a radio interview this morning that the team is planning to round the Horn before heading in for repairs. The earlier plan was to make a stop in Ushuaia and make a huge reinforcement to the keel box and then carry on from there to Rio de Janeiro.

Elsewhere in the fleet, ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson) leads the chase towards Cape Horn, 62 nautical miles ahead. Pirates of the Caribbean (Paul Cayard) is in second place, 28 miles behind Sanderson, followed by Brasil 1 (Torben Grael), ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse) and, bringing up the rear, Ericsson Racing Team (Neal McDonald).

LEG FOUR DAY 12, 02.03. 06, 1000 GMT POSITION REPORT
YACHT Latitude Longitude DTF SMG 24 Hour Run 24 Hour Speed DTL DTLC SGPTS PLPTS PTLPTS ETA POP POSITION OVERALL
1 ABN1 56 43.82S 068 50.99W 02330 21.7 538 22.4 00000 +00000 0 7.0 7.0 10/03/06 __:__:__ 45.5 1
2 POTC 56 25.06S 070 03.53W 02358 22.1 536 22.4 00028 +00005 0 6.0 6.0 10/03/06 __:__:__ 27.5 4
3 BRA1 56 07.39S 072 25.94W 02435 19.6 519 21.6 00105 -00013 0 5.0 5.0 10/03/06 __:__:__ 25.0 5
4 MOVI 56 46.38S 072 45.99W 02450 07.9 451 18.8 00120 -00081 0 4.0 4.0 10/03/06 __:__:__ 29.0 3
5 ABN2 56 56.15S 074 29.38W 02508 19.5 507 21.1 00178 -00012 0 3.0 3.0 11/03/06 __:__:__ 31.0 2
6 ERIC 57 04.36S 074 53.46W 02522 19.6 496 20.6 00192 -00010 0 2.0 2.0 11/03/06 __:__:__ 18.5 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

SGPTS: points scored at scoring gates on this leg to date
PLPTS: projected leg points
PTLPTS: projected total leg points including actual points from scoring gates
POP: projected overall points including actual points from scoring gates
OVERALL: projected position in race overall if yacht maintains current position