Tyco’s reign concluded – illbruck First

by Volvo Ocean Race Office on 4 Oct 2001 After four days, Team Tyco’s reign at the front of the Volvo Ocean Race
fleet concluded this evening as illbruck’s bold move to the east paid
handsome dividends.

As Stu Bettany reported from illbruck yesterday afternoon, their easterly
track looked promising as the fleet sailed into an area of little wind.
“The moves we made to break from the four other boats at the front of the
pack (Tyco, ASSA ABLOY, Amer Sports One and Team News Corp) and head east
is slowly paying off,” said Bettany.

He continued, “We had a good position report a couple of hours ago
(16.00hrs GMT) that had great gains on all boats to the west, looks like
we have slightly more wind than they do. We can't wait for the next few
reports to come in”. Illbruck will now be looking to find the northeast
trade wind belt and extend her lead.

For the first time in ocean racing, the crews have permanent access to the
Internet. Even though limited to 10 public sites, the impact on routing a
V.O.60 around the world is massive, as Nick White, co-navigator on News
Corp explains: “I must admit the Internet experience from a tactical point
of view is proving to be a revelation. Peter Isler and I have used it in a
limited way on slow mini-m systems before, but with our Inmarsat B system
allowing a 64k ISDN link ashore, all sorts of opportunities arise. In many
ways, it has made my job easier - I can go online when I want and get
(almost) what I want instead of having to rely on ever diminishing radio
fax transmissions. Because of this, I get a lot more time to sleep and
talk to Bart (Simpson – 13th crewmember).”

In light wind conditions every extra knot of wind speed makes a huge
difference in the performance of a sailing yacht, more than any other
factor. With this in mind the pressure on the navigator is immense. They
are analysing weather information from various sources, plotting theirs
and the other boats’ courses and most important, compare different routing
options for the following hours and days. Especially when there are few
changes in the wind patterns, it is down to picking up marginal changes.
As the scenario is repeating again and again, ASSA ABLOY’s Navigator and
co-skipper Mark Rudiger tells: “So the fifth episode of ‘groundhog day’
begins again...for those of you who don’t understand that, you’ll have to
ask someone or go rent the video. You’ll like it, especially if you’re a
Bill Murray fan like myself. Hopefully our ending will be as happy. “

In other areas, even V.O.60 sailors rely in their gut feeling. Guillermo
Altadil has put some extra food on board ASSA ABLOY, because he felt, this
time the trip could last longer than expected.

At the moment the positioning game is capturing the mind of every sailor
in the Volvo Ocean Race. Even John Kostecki told his thoughts: “It looks
like we have a bit better breeze than the boats to the west of us. We
didn’t think of the move as a gamble, we just looked at our weather
information and figured there would be more wind in the east. Just wanted
to get a little gap and it seems to have paid off for us. It’s been good
for us because we’ve been making small gains on the fleet. Our plans now
are to keep pushing. Weather wise, not necessarily stick with the fleet.
The way to go seems to sail our own race. Juan Vila and Ian Moore have a
lot to do with the decision-making. We talk about it as a group. If I’m
not happy with a decision they make, then I’ll say no we’ll do something
else.”

Aside from the battle for the lead at present, the crews of djuice and SEB
report good spirits despite their lowly positions. With just over 2,000
miles under their keels and over 5,000 miles left to decide the leg,
neither is prepared to give up the fight.

“Never in my life has my patience been tested harder,” reflected djuice
skipper Knut Frostad in an email. “A small loss during the first days out
of England has grown to a massive distance, even if we have been fighting
like hell, day and night and most likely made very few mistakes the last
days. BUT……. Don’t you ever think that we have accepted the loss”.

This time it was the girls on Amer Sports Too delivering the best 24 hour
performance with a total of 220 miles, closely followed by djuice’s 218.
Team SEB in the east has slowed down and even made another move to the
ease in their search for the best approach to the doldrums.


Position Report Day 11, 0956 GMT

PS Yacht Latitude Longitude DTF CMG SMG TFHR DTL ROC ETA PO
1 ILBK 23 10.76N 023 38.28W 05367 216 09.5 204 00 00.0 24 OCT 01 8
2 TYCO 23 37.40N 024 27.32W 05378 216 08.9 189 11 -00.3 24 OCT 01 7
3 AART 23 37.88N 024 26.36W 05379 216 08.9 190 12 -00.5 24 OCT 01 6
4 AONE 23 32.76N 024 04.44W 05380 213 11.5 191 13 -00.3 24 OCT 01 5
5 NEWS 23 28.32N 023 32.52W 05385 223 08.8 185 18 -00.5 24 OCT 01 4
6 DJCE 24 34.40N 022 56.52W 05458 197 07.8 218 91 00.2 24 OCT 01 3
7 ATOO 25 09.60N 023 05.08W 05489 206 09.6 220 122 -00.2 24 OCT 01 2
8 TSEB 23 13.96N 018 11.80W 05492 182 07.2 198 125 -02.8 24 OCT 01 1



PS – Position; DTF – Distance to Finish; CMG – Course made good; SMG –
Speed made good; TFHR – 24 hours run; DTL – Distance to leader; ROC – Rate
of Closure; ETA – Estimated time of arrival; PO - Points

ILBK illbruck Challenge

AONE Amer Sports One

ATOO Amer Sports Two

AART ASSA ABLOY Racing Team

NEWS News Corporation

TYCO Team Tyco

TSEB Team SEB

DJCE djuice dragons