Team SEB strengthens crew with Olympic sailor

by Fredrik Trahn on 14 Sep 2001 Team SEB strengthens crew with Olympic sailor

Team SEB has strengthened its Volvo Ocean Race crew by recruiting a
highly qualified World Championship and Olympic sailor. Santiago Lange,
a 40-year-old Argentinean, is the final member to join the team,
bringing the Team SEB crew up to full strength.

Santiago who, despite the name, comes from Buenos Aires, has an
impressive background in dinghy racing. A three-times World Champion in
Snipe, he has participated in three Olympic Games in Soling, Laser and
Tornado. In the Sydney Olympic Games in October last year he took tenth
place in Tornado. He will be sailing with Team SEB as trimmer and
helmsman.

'I've been racing sailboats all my life and have long dreamed of taking
part in a round-the-world race like the Volvo Ocean Race. What really
fascinates me is that it's competitive sailing at its most extreme - and
over such a long period. I'm really glad to have been selected to join
Team SEB, because it's such a good team, with enormous experience,' says
Santiago Lange.

Trained as a naval architect, Santiago Lange's competitive sailing
career includes 12 Argentinean championship trophies in different
classes, in addition to his placings in the Olympic Games and World
Championships, as well as two silver medals in the Pan-American Games
and several victories in big-boat races in the USA and Europe.

'Santiago has been with us since the close of the preparatory phase and
we immediately saw how he would make an ideal member of the team, with
all his know-how and his touch as a helmsman, refined over many years of
dinghy racing. A real course-racer is just what we need to complete the
crew,' says skipper and sporting manager Gurra Krantz.

With a week-and-a-half left to the start of the Race, Team SEB is now
fine-tuning its form at its Cowes base on the Isle of Wight, off the
English port of Southampton.

The Volvo Ocean Race will start from Southampton on Sunday 23 September,
at 3.00 p.m. Then follows almost nine months of intensely competitive
sailing round the world. The First Leg, the longest of the race with its
7350 nautical miles, is to Cape Town in South Africa, with the boats
expected to cross the finishing line around October 23rd.


For more info:
Fredrik Trahn, Press Officer/Team SEB: phone +46 (0)70-913 67 96.
Anette Bargel, Media Co-Ordinator/Team SEB: phone +46 (0)733 91 98 34.
Oskar Kihlborg, Film & Photo/Team SEB: phone + 46 (0)70-322 50 00.
www.teamseb.com

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