Grant Dalton looking forward to Sydney

by Volvo Event Media on 9 Nov 2001 Two days before the start of leg 2 and the crews of the Nautor Challenge yachts are thinking about the 25 days of
racing that lie ahead.

The Southern Ocean is uppermost in their minds.

That fabled stretch of water, unbroken by any landmass, where wind and currents can whip up massive seas that
dwarf the yachts and where mistakes are not easily forgiven.

Amer Sports One skipper Grant Dalton answers frankly when asked if he is looking forward to the Southern Ocean:
'No! I will be looking forward to Sydney.'

Perhaps he can be forgiven for being less that enthusiastic. He has been there six times before, most recently in
January/February this year as skipper of the super catamaran Club Med. In that race, non-stop around the world,
Dalton finished first.

However he concedes that the Southern Ocean offers the most exhilarating sailing in the world. 'The sailing is great,'
he says, 'It's very fast. What I don't like is the wet and cold.'

Members of his crew - and the crew of Amer Sports Too - say the danger, wet and cold are more than compensated
for by days of fast sailing under spinnaker. For those members who have not been there before there is some
apprehension.

Dalton says reliability will be the key to success in the Southern Ocean. 'In this part of the world it is very easy to
break a yacht. We will be very careful - they don't call it the roaring forties and furious fifties for nothing.

From Cape Town yachts will experience moderate winds from the southeast and swing to the southwest after a
day.

Dalton says; 'It looks like a leg to head south as fast as we can go. However, the weather forecast could easily
change by the weekend and tactics could change.

'The secret here is to keep on the weather systems - fall off the back and you can easily be left behind.

'In the last Cape Town start, Swedish Match headed to sea while the rest of the fleet stayed inland and parked very
close to Cape Town. Swedish Match caught the breeze and got away.'

The finish then was at Fremantle on Australia's west coast. This time the finish is in Sydney and VOR organisers
have made Eclipse Island, four miles off the coast of Albany in West Australia a mark that the fleet must round.

Depending on the weather, the yachts might go only 51 or 52 degrees South because they must go north to round
Eclipse Island. Without that waypoint, the yachts could easily got below 60 degree south, where icebergs are
common.

Even so, the could encounter ice and they will almost certainly have snow, hail and sleet.