BT Global Challenge Leg 6 Finish News

by Event Media on 24 Jun 2001 In the true spirit of the BT Global Challenge a hero's welcome greeted Olympic Group as they arrived in La Rochelle
after 41 days 2 hours and 38 minutes at sea. Having suffered a cruel lack of wind that resulted in the crew's decision
to retire from the leg by engaging their propeller, the crew was greeted by hundreds of fellow crewmembers and
spectators. Olympic Group's arrival marked the end of what many of the skippers described as the 'hardest leg' with
exceptionally light winds lengthening the leg by a week.

Olympic Group's crew was in good spirits despite the setback that will see the team receive just two points for the
leg having been penalised for retiring. Skipper Manley Hopkinson expressed his delight with the reception he
received: 'While I would much rather have come into an empty dock in first place this is quite a spectacular
reception. We hadn't even seen land when the first supporters boat came out to meet us!'

Hopkinson went on to describe the decision to retire from the leg: 'What we had to remember is that for us Leg 6
was dead in the water and we still had Leg 7 to consider. We had a crew meeting about a week ago were we
reached the decision that if we were not at a certain point at a critical time then we would engage the engine.
Certainly we had moments out at sea when we mourned this decision but we've left that behind us and now we are
focused on the next leg - its ours for the taking!'

Olympic Group was not the only yacht to suffer from the exceptionally light winds. Just a week after the fleet
departed Cape Town on the race north to La Rochelle a decision was made to delay the restart and subsequent
arrival in Southampton as the fleet's progress was much slower than expected.

Hopkinson described the difficult decisions that many of the skippers were faced with over the course of the leg: 'We
had done a lot of work in Cape Town about how to get out of Table Bay as well as where the narrow point of The
Doldrums was and how to avoid wind shadows around the various islands en-route. Logica and Compaq NonStop had
done exceptionally well keeping inshore through The Doldrums but the information I had was to keep west. Where we
really lost out was Madeira, we thought 30 miles for a wind-shadow was adequate so I went out to 45 miles and even
then we were crucified by the wind. We were losing over 100 miles a day and we just watched the fleet disappear!'

Now Olympic Group has a brief respite in order to prepare for the start of the final leg, the short sprint to
Southampton and the end of the BT Global Challenge 2000/01. Race re-start from La Rochelle will take place on
Tuesday 26th June with the fleet expected to arrive in Ocean Village, Southampton from 1400 hours on Saturday
30th June.


1 Compaq
2 Logica
3 BP
4 Isle of Man
5 Spirit of Hong Kong
6 Norwich Union
7 TeamSpirIT
8 LG FLATRON
9 Save the Children
10 Quadstone
11 VERITAS
Retired Olympic Group

Overall Results after 6 legs:
Pos / Yacht / Leg 1 / Leg 2 / Leg 3 / Leg 4 / Leg 5 / Leg 6 / Total Points
1 LG FLATRON 13 15 15 14 15 8 - 80
2 Compaq 12 12 13 12 11 15 - 75
3 BP 14 9 5 15 12 13 - 68
4 Quadstone 15 10 11 3 13 6 - 58
5 Spirit of Hong Kong 8 14 6 9 7 11 - 55
6= Isle of Man 10 7 10 8 9 10 - 54
6= TeamSpirIT 6 6 12 11 10 9 - 54
8 Logica 7 13 8 13 8 14 - 53
9= Norwich Union 5 5 9 6 14 8 - 47
9= VERITAS 11 8 7 10 6 5 - 47
11 Olympic Group 4 11 14 7 5 3 - 44
12 Save the Children 7 4 4 5 5 7 - 32