Volvo Ocean Race- Injured crew member taken off Telefonica Black

by Volvo Ocean Race media/Telefonica Black on 12 Apr 2009
Fernando's Echavarri's Telefonica Black, which burst out of the starting blocks on Saturday afternoon, will sail the Volvo Ocean Race leg into Boston one man short.

Bowman Michael Pammenter has injured his foot, and was taken back to the Marina da Gloria by a support boat. Under the race rules, the team cannot replace him during this leg. Upon arrival at the marina, Pammenter was transferred to hospital to have his leg and foot examined.

'I had the jib sheet wrapped around my foot when we went into a tack and I got flipped into the rig,' he said, describing how it occured. 'I got my foot stuck between the mast and the jib sheet basically. It's really painful but I've had some painkillers so it's calmed down a lot, but there's a lot of swelling so we thought it would be safer if I got off the boat and got it checked out properly. Hopefully I'll be back for the next leg.

'Originally I was going to try and carry on, do as little as possible, but the realisation came that if I want it to heal properly I have to get off and get it done properly. There is minimal chance that I have broken anything, but just be safe.

'I am really upset,' he continued. 'I just feel pretty stupid to be honest. We are all really excited to leave and then I do something like this. But it happens.'

Meanwhile, on the race course, at the 22:00 position report, Puma and Telefonica Black were in a close battle for top spot. But Telefonica Blue, Ericsson 4 and Green Dragon were all within a mile of the lead - it's still very early to have a clear leader.

Wind speeds are down in the 7-knot region and as darkness falls on Rio, the sea breeze from this afternoon is certain to die out.

Rick Deppe, the media man on Puma, was the first to send in a report this evening. He describes how hard it was to say goodbye to Rio, the start, and notes that currently, his team is 'sailing east at a slow speed in close company with the whole fleet.'

He says his team is expecting a slow start to the leg. Earlier, on the dock, one of the crew could be heard joking they may still be in sight from the beach when the sun comes up on Sunday morning.

So it's a quiet start to leg six, with the light air chess game expected to continue through the rest of the Easter weekend. The forecast improves next week.

LEG SIX DAY TWO TELEFÓNICA BLACK QFB: received 12.04.09 0646 GMT

We had a splendid beginning on leg six. Fernando Echávarri, at the helm, made a great leeward start supported by Gonza (Gonzalo Araujo) doing the tactics. We rounded the windward mark first and held the lead all the way to the mark off Copacabana Beach, but were close to losing our fragile lead as the tack of the ‘Anaconda’, our large masthead headsail, came undone. Got it back on and moved slow eastwards in the weak SE'ly breeze but had hard to keep Puma behind.

At this time we became aware that the ankle injury of our foredeck crew Mike Pammenter was serious enough to decide to evacuate him from the boat. In the early hectic minutes of the race he got the genoa sheet around his ankle and was brutally pulled into the base of the mast during a tack. Uncertain about the possibility of a fracture, as the ankle became more swollen, he carefully stepped off the boat into the Volvo Ocean Race supplied RIB that caught up with us just SW of Ilha Maricas, a bit down the coast. Sad for Mike and sad for us as we need all 10 of us to push the boat for the next 4900 nm. Still the best choice, to make sure he recovers as soon as possible.

At this time, 0520 GMT, we have made very unsatisfying progress towards Cabo Frio as the breeze for hours has stayed around 3-4 knots from the north. Telefónica Blue and Green Dragon made a bold move and pushed hard to become closer to the shore than the rest of us and picked up a little more land breeze. The two are now leading the pack of seven. We could see them passing through the background lights on the shore faster than we wanted!

The latest seven day forecast does not look promising and indicates 20 rather than 16 days at sea before we tie up in Boston.

Yours Roger
Roger Nilson - navigator

www.volvooceanrace.org