Volvo Ocean Race 2001/2002 zurück zur Übersicht VOLVO OCEAN RACE - Leg 3 - Wochenbericht 1 Southampton, England, January 5, 2002 Week 2 Battles into Auckland To every New Zealander on the Volvo Ocean Race fleet, to be the first Kiwi into Auckland rates extremely high in their list of achievements for this leg. Grant Dalton from Amer Sports One when asked how important for him personally to lead into Auckland, said in Hobart, “As important as any other Kiwi in this race, won the last two and I would like to win this one.” Richard Mason from ASSA ABLOY having just achieved line honours for the Sydney to Hobart race said, “Let’s see if we can win into Auckland as well, I would be the happiest man in the World!” He was. With a total of 28 New Zealanders on this leg in the fleet, not all of them could win this accolade, but Richard Mason and Stu Wilson the two kiwis on board ASSA ABLOY along with the rest of the crew entered Viaduct Basin after they had crossed the finish line, to a heroes’ welcome from the early morning cheering crowd. For McDonald and crew, this had been a great leg, having also led the fleet into Hobart for the pit stop. On leaving Tasmania they took a more northerly route across the Tasman Sea and had only lost the lead once, when they had had a problem with their spinnaker. It was a remarkable achievement, considering that the crew of ASSA ABLOY had been sailing most of this leg with at least one crew-member sick or injured. Jason Carrington and Guillermo Altadill, both developed suspected internal infections and Magnus Olsson took a bad fall not long after the start, and injured his back. Mark Rudiger had reported worrying news the previous day, “Klas “Klabbe” Nylof, our senior onboard physician, has been a busy boy. Since departing Hobart, there have been daily calls for him to treat three onboard patients. First, Magnus took a bad fall coming into Hobart and injured his back and ribs. He has been confined to duties below deck, which has been a huge help for us always having food and hot drinks, as well as helping me in the Nav station,” reported Mark Rudiger, and he continued, “If I had to pick an outstanding sailor for this leg it would be Dr. Nylof.” On arriving at the dock, in spite of his injury, for Magnus Olsson, there was a double celebration on this great victory, his children were holding a banner at the dock saying, “Happy Birthday Daddy.” A further injury occurred to skipper Neal McDonald as they arrived, when fellow crew-mate Mike Joubert opened a bottle of champagne and the cork caught Neal in the face! At the dock, Mark Rudiger said about their win, “We finally got a podium place, which was great. The best part was coming round the North Cape and still not seeing Dalton – that was our biggest worry, that he would catch us up.” Commenting further on how the boat managed without three of the crew, he said, “Basically we just all said that we have to grunt up, and pitch in a little bit more. Fortunately because of our position we didn’t have to go boat-to-boat battling quite so much. It just goes to show what guys can do; and it helps when you’re the winners; you can just get up and carry the load.” Neal McDonald was delighted over their victory, “It felt very good to cross the finish line, I could breathe for the first time in about 28 hours! I was pretty nervous I have to say with Dalts on our tail, we were very wary of wind changes and light air, so we are very pleased that it has ended the way it has.” The crew made an early decision to follow a northerly route across the Tasman Sea, which had been a planned strategy for McDonald, “For days and days our weather guys in Sydney were telling us that the northerly would win through and if you try to buckle up in the south you’ll lose. We had that in our mind when we left. By the extent of the advantage, we were surprised. But we were comfortable as soon as we got north and we knew the gains were going to keep coming in.” Just under two hours later, Grant Dalton’s Amer Sports One crossed the finish line. McDonald had been looking over his shoulder at Amer Sports One, after they passed Cape Reinga and said, “Well it was always a possibility [that they could pass us], he’s probably the worst man in the world to have behind you coming into Auckland, he’s got a good reputation for being a come-back king. We were aware that if anyone was going to catch us it would have been him.” Grant Dalton and his crew fought as hard as they could right to the last, “It was a bit tricky, we were going backwards for a while, but we had enough lead [on the boats behind] not to ever really feel threatened. The guys behind us have a far harder race on their hands then us. ASSA ABLOY sailed a really good race, they took it right out of Hobart, they sailed very hard and they’ve done a fantastic job so congratulations to them and to Neal, they really deserved it.” On their strategy to head north with ASSA ABLOY, Dalton said, “It was wet but it wasn’t too bad, ASSA ABLOY has had a couple of bad legs and they broke to the north and the rest of the fleet broke more south; and we had a bit of a quandary, which way to go – do we follow the boat out right by itself or do you stick with the herd. So we split in the middle really! We felt the north was probably right, and as it turned out it was. It worked for them and I take my hat off to Mark Rudiger as he has tried a brave move twice in the last legs and has missed out both times – yet he was prepared to do it again, and that takes a lot of self-confidence. A good job by him to have enough confidence to stick by his guns and do what he thought was right.” >From Cape Reinga, both ASSA ABLOY and Amer Sports One had only been able to watch the fleet close up on them from behind at speed. Roger Nilson wrote from Amer Sports One, “… we lost the nice northwesterly wind almost totally, four miles southwest from Cape Reinga and decided to go close to the corner, as there seemed to be more wind there then offshore. Had the bad luck to hit foul tide at its worst moment, full moon and max setting 3,5 kts against us. With only six knots of wind straight on the nose from northeast it looked bad. Hardly made any progress over ground, in spite of sailing as close as we dared, right into the infamous rocks just northwest of Reinga.” After Amer Sports One turned south towards Auckland at the next point, he continued, “As we hoist the spinnaker right now at North Cape, the northeast corner of New Zealand, we cannot see ASSA ABLOY ahead or illbruck behind at Cape Reinga. Hopefully illbruck, News Corp and Tyco also will have to pay their duty getting around that tricky corner [Reinga].” The previous night had been a wet one for the V.O. 60s. Jez Fanstone, skipper of News Corp claimed 12 smelly dogs had invaded the boat, “This has been accompanied by a continual soaking so that the boat below smells like it is inhabited by 12 wet labradors.” He also reported that sail changes had started to drain the crew’s energy, “This leg seems to have been the hardest physically so far. I don’t know if it is because of the stopover in Hobart and the fact that we haven’t recovered from the trip down there properly but moving the ton of wet sails around the boat is a daunting task at the moment. We have had a lot of gear changes in the last few days requiring us to change sails and move all the gear around in the boat, which has been draining on the bodies’ reserves.” The tightest battle of the leg was fought most of the way from Hobart, between illbruck, News Corp and Tyco. Dee Smith from Amer Sports One reflected on the battle going on behind them, “The race behind is fun to watch. illbruck just gunned down Tyco and News Corp in a power reach. But the other two are close enough when the wind gets light to make a pass. We might have found a kink in illbruck's armour. Four boats passed them in Storm Bay [Tasmania] in light air.” Steve Hayles from Tyco wrote, “We are doing all that we can but there are 24 other sailors doing the same. It will be a nerve wracking few hours to the finish.” The battle lasted right up to a very tight finish in Auckland, with a thrilling display of tactics boat handling and crew work, which any one of the three boats could have won. Tyco was finally to be the winner of the three-boat war, giving her third place overall, with illbruck next and not long after followed by News Corp. A delighted Steve Hayles commented on arrival in Auckland, “I think everybody in the race pushed very, very hard. The boats were very fast, everybody is pretty evenly matched, so it’s been a tough race for 200 miles from the other side of New Zealand – for two days it has been really tight. The whole leg has been tight, but those two days were tough and at the end there we had an opportunity and the cards fell our way. I think if we had come in fifth we would be saying something else, but in reality it makes a huge difference, it’s a podium place and that’s what we need to be doing now, we need to be in the top three and then we will be back in the frame for the overall standings.” Kevin Shoebridge, skipper of Tyco, commented on their decision to split from illbruck and News Corp right at the end, “Half of it was because we were half out of control and we wanted to do as little gybes as possible, so we decided to go outside Tiri Island, as opposed to inside – the other two went inside and we ended up with a much better angle coming into the finish. It’s been a matter of only 500 metres between a great day and a bad day!” John Kostecki of illbruck was thankful to finish in fourth place and still be leading on overall points, “We had some tough breaks, the other teams sailed better than us. We made some mistakes here and there and we deserved what we got. We are overall leader at the moment so we’re happy. They (Tyco) are great sailors; they are local here. They know these waters quite well. We were in a tight battle with News Corp. We gave them the opportunity to make that move and you take those chances when you are right behind the lead group. >From News Corp’s perspective, Jez Fanstone was disappointed with the result, but certainly not with the crew’s performance, “Everyone put in 110 per cent. I’m a little bit disappointed that we finish the job and get the third place. We were top three with four hours to go and we didn’t quite get the breaks towards the end. I guess it’s disappointing but we are not disappointed in the performance, just the result.” The crew of djuice dragons were also disappointed with their result in sixth place and Knut Frostad said, “How do I feel? I don’t feel very good about it no. We are disappointed. It was a hard leg for us. We started hard, we came well out of Sydney, but our halyard lock broke, we filled the boat up with water, and did all kinds of things. It was a struggle to Hobart. We had a speed problem jib reaching and so we got left behind all the time and that was frustrating.” In pouring rain Amer Sports Too was the last of the V.O.60 fleet to arrive in Auckland on January 5. They enjoyed a quick ride through the second half of the Tasman Sea and down the New Zealand coast. In Auckland the team has to do some work on the boat after the emergency repair done to the damaged rudder in Hobart. No other arrival saw as many spectators lined up as for Amer Sports Too, the docks were crammed and cheers filled the air. When hitting the dock, skipper Lisa McDonald said: “It is a great sense of accomplishment that we have managed to overcome each and every obstacle which we have come up against in this leg and I think it says a lot for the crew that we have attacked each problem as it has arisen with great professionalism, the quickness of figuring out what the problem is and solving it, coming to a conclusion and carrying on with the race says a great deal for this team and I am very proud of the whole group.” On the much talked about dash from Sydney to Auckland she commented: “I am not going to call it a sprint ever again.” Sharon Ferris will be celebrating her birthday at home in New Zealand on the 17th January. She is one of the three kiwis on the boat, with the other two Bridget Suckling on the bow and Keryn Henderson. For Lisa McDonald and her crew, it was hard to know that the boats were already crossing the finish line in Auckland while they were still making their way towards Cape Reinga, “This is the tough bit, toughing it out while the others finish. We have suffered the consequence of a broken forestay and a damaged rudder. We are still racing strong, knowing we started from Hobart with a deficit of 30+/- hours behind, with a mended boat.” Restart date Auckland: January 27, 2002 Overall position after three legs pending protests PS Yacht Leg 3 points Arrival Time Elapsed Time Combined Time PO Overall Pos. 1 AART 8 03 JAN 02 17:20:42 008d 11h 50m 42s 066d 04h 33m 46s 15 4 2 AONE 7 03 JAN 02 19:09:06 008d 13h 39m 06s 062d 17h 50m 14s 18 2 3 TYCO 6 03 JAN 02 20:18:39 008d 14h 48m 39s - 12 5 4 ILBK 5 03 JAN 02 20:22:41 008d 14h 52m 41s 062d 10h 34m 56s 21 1 5 NEWS 4 03 JAN 02 20:24:54 008d 14h 54m 54s 063d 22h 09m 40s 16 3 6 DJCE 3 03 JAN 02 23:16:49 008d 17h 46m 49s 068d 18h 31m 17s 10 7 7 ATOO 2 05 JAN 02 11:27:52 010d 05h 57m 52s 073d 22h 17m 26s 5 8 8 SEB 1 - - 11 6 Leaderboard PS Yacht Points 1 illbruck 21 2 Amer Sports One 18 3 News Corporation 16 4 ASSA ABLOY 15 5 Tyco 12 6 SEB 11 7 djuice 10 8 Amer Sports Too 5 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 Volvo and Volvo Ocean Race Background The Volvo Car Corporation has its headquarters in Gothenburg, Sweden. 27,400 people worldwide are employed by Volvo Cars and in the year 2000, the company's sales increased to 422,100 cars. Volvo is one of the world’s leading suppliers of commercial transport solutions. The group manufactures trucks, buses, and construction equipment, power systems for marine and industrial use, and aircraft engine components. Founded in 1927, Volvo currently has about 79.000 employees, manufacturing operations in 30 countries and a worldwide market and service organisation. The Volvo Ocean Race is run every four years. It starts in Southampton on September 23rd 2001 and finishes in Kiel, Germany, on June 9th 2002. Over a period lasting some nine months, the Volvo Ocean Race will reach a broad audience around the world via modern communication technology. Copyright © 1996-2016 - SEGEL.DE