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2.Wochenbericht - Leg 5
Southampton, England, Week 2, Leg 5
Girl Power On Amer Sports Too
Going into the second week of leg five in the Volvo Ocean Race, a clear
pattern had developed as the yachts cleared the northeastern tip of
Brazil. The fleet had split into a leading and a trailing group with SEB
right in the middle.
In the front group it was once again illbruck who set the benchmark, but
well challenged by Tyco and ASSA ABLOY. The three yachts continued with
just a few miles between them swapping the lead several times. Only after
day ten, illbruck managed to sail away from the two fellow Farr Yacht
Design boats and stretch the lead to 30 miles by the end of week two. ASSA
ABLOY and Tyco stayed together and could not break away from each other.
After passing Barbuda, they tried to challenge illbruck by gybing with the
only result that they lost some miles to the German yacht, skippered by
America John Kostecki, who took advantage of a favourable wind shift.
News Corp was holding fourth place when rounding Natal and decided to
continue on the right border of the fleet. But soon they were engaged by
the other yachts and had to accept losing places. A worried Ross Field
wrote from onboard: “Been one of those days. Lost big miles and have, yet
again, attracted every black cloud. It started raining six hours ago and
hasn't stopped since - reminds me of the summers in Auckland.” SEB, this
time closer to the shore sailed around the other yachts and manoeuvred
into fourth place, stretching continuously away from the trailing yachts.
On day 10, Grant Dalton’s worst nightmares came true, as he had to face
the possibility of defeat by his female teammates on Amer Sports Too,
trailing the girls by thirteen miles. A merciful cloud helped with a
favourable squall and put Amer Sports One ahead again.
Holding fifth place for some time, Lisa McDonald’s crew on Amer Sports Too
had to face their losses once the sailing became physically demanding.
Slowly they were falling behind Amer Sports One and News Corp. By the end
of week two they worked hard to stay in front of djuice, who they want to
beat into Miami at all cost.
Once again, five months after passing these waters, the yachts were due to
cross the equator. Already two days before they actually crossed, the
event threw its shadow. King Neptune was back with the fleet and ready to
throw his wrath upon the crewmembers entering his realm for the first
time. His patience was rewarded with some fresh sailors who came on board
on one of the southern hemisphere legs. No matter where positioned, all
the sailors obeyed ruefully to his call and took the punishment with the
utmost devotion.
Anthony Nossiter of djuice had to face the strongest charges, firstly he
crossed Cape Horn bare of any cloth, and secondly he tried to escape
facing the king by telling lies. The crew revealed the fraud and wrote
from on board: “In Rio, he asked his friend Nico [Chris Nicholson] on Amer
Sports One, how he could get out of trouble with King Neptune. His good
friend Nico advised him to tell a lie that he had done the Melbourne to
Osaka race earlier, and therefore already had crossed the equator. In the
meantime Nocka thought it was a bit too easy to find out that he hadn't
done the race, so he chose to tell the skipper and others on djuice that
he had done a delivery from Melbourne to Osaka. Very early on we had
suspicions that this was a complete fake story as 99.9% of the deliveries
are done the opposite way, from Osaka to Melbourne, after the race to
Osaka. This was clearly confirmed yesterday by Nocka's nice friend Nico on
Amer Sports One who sent us a mail telling us that we shouldn't believe a
word of what Nocka said about earlier equator crossings!! What a set-up!
What a friend, and how angry did King Neptune get???? Well done Nock!”
Neptune’s helpers tied the poor fellow to the jockey pole and, with a
speech justifying our punishment, the pot of 'crud' was poured all over
his naked body and left to dry. It took him hours to clean up properly.
Freddy Loof on Amer Sports One was not much better off. Neptune doesn’t
usually show any mercy. It doesn’t matter whether someone is a novice
sailor or a multiple Olympic class world champion as in Freddy’s case.
Anthony Merrington of SEB as well was made sure to remember this day in
his life for the years to come.
It was icebergs on leg two and four but obstructions on this leg were of a
different nature; as Richard Clarke, one of illbruck’s helmsmen wrote:
“Had some close encounters with many of the locals today as the fishing
fleet was out in full force. Narrowly missed five small fishing boats and
we were close enough to almost sample the catch of the day. You should
have seen the little boats these guys are in. We are about 25 miles off
the coast and there are three guys in a 15-foot boat pulling in their
catch by hand. The boats have no engines and only are powered by a small
sail. We went by them in the early hours and either they got a very early
start or they spent the night out here. “
By the end of the week illbruck had less than 1000 miles to go and the
yachts are expected to finish on March 26 and 27.
Quote from boats during week two:
Freddy Loof, Amer Sports One: “I have one concern at the moment though as
Nico [Celon] mentioned in yesterdays report, crossing the equator. Firstly
Grant who can be quite a hard man and then Roger how almost seem to know
King Neptune himself, so they are all screaming how they will punish me in
the next 24 hours as we are approaching the equator. I think the treat
will include porridge and strawberry drinks as they all think I am eating
all the food, which is absolutely wrong. For my own concern I will also
make sure the razors and the tools, which can make me suffer, slowly
disappear later on tonight. I am a little bit more concerned when it all
will be happening though, I was just up on deck steering for a few hours,
slowly bearing off from course, which is pretty much straight to the
equator.”
Stig Westergaard, djuice: “Forget about sailing. As you all know, we are
DFL, (dead f........ last), and frankly - it sucks. We have been hurt big
time in the doldrums, and try at the best of our dragon-spirit to gain
back. So sail reporting is at present rather meek. So be it.”
Lisa McDonald, Amer Sports Too: “head in the bilge, bum in the air, legs
splayed across floorboards and bulkheads to brace ourselves against the
heel of the boat and covered in bilge grime, rust, sweat and salt is how
you would have found us early in the morning. We had a long old night
without the boat water-maker working and then had our emergency pump break
in the middle of the night.”
Jon Gundersen, SEB: “On board SEB we have an interesting mix of Europeans
and antipodeans - which makes for a unique brand of humor, even when the
sailing gets a little tedious spirits reindex high around here. This
evening the Scandinavian influence was dominating and there was a
disturbing amount of nudity on deck: come to mention it, under the cover
of darkness I am not all together sure that all the guys on deck even have
shorts on. Certainly not the kind of thing you would see on a boat full of
just Kiwis and Australians, but then again I doubt a fully Swedish team
would be discussing cricket and rugby scores either.”
Ross Field, News Corp: “We have had a minor crisis on board. Barney
[Walker] decided to wash the dishes after dinner last night. This in
itself was a major step forward for Barney - he isn't seen often around
the galley area other than raiding the food bags. Anyway in this washing
up he has lost three of our eating spoons. This may not sound like a
crisis, but we only have six spoons on board to start with and these are
used for eating, stirring coffee etc.”
Steve Hayles, Tyco: “…. it has not been a good day for Nipper (aka Guy
Salter) who had a flying fish ordeal of a different kind. Nipper’s
problem was, that one went completely unnoticed in a sail bag, which was
right at the back of the boat to help trim the stern down in the fast
reaching conditions, after landing. When the call came to peel [change]
to that sail today, he ended up covered in the stinking reindexs after
having to handle the sail for some time. It was getting dark and the
breeze was up so it was not the ideal time for a salt water shower but
there was no way we were letting him down below before several gallons of
water had been used to get rid of the smell. He retired to his bunk well
after the rest of his watch, cold and a little shaken by the experience I
think.
Mark Rudiger, ASSA ABLOY: “During the day, we can see Tyco and what
they’re up to by eye so we can cover. At night, we rarely see their
running lights, so must cover a lot by radar. By the rule, the radar is
mounted on the mast for better range and clear vision ahead. The bad news
is there is a blind spot astern, (where Tyco is hiding at the moment), and
we have to rely more on the spotters then. We know they’re trying to find
a way to sneak by, so we have to stay on our toes.”
Mark “Crusty” Christensen, illbruck: “It will come down to one or two
decisions made by the navigators and skippers. There will be some key gybe
or gybes that will position the boat well for better wind shift or wind
speed and that will decide this leg. I wouldn't swap my seat in the stand
with anyone.”
Background stories:
On Neptune coming on board:
http://www.volvooceanrace.org/team/tseb/email/leg_5/20020318_mutter.html
http://www.volvooceanrace.org/team/djce/email/leg_5/20020318_nossiter.html
http://www.volvooceanrace.org/press/raceoffice/all_legs/20020318_neptunes_realm.html
On djuice’s thoughts about carrying the wooden spoon:
http://www.volvooceanrace.org/team/djce/email/leg_5/20020318_frostad.html
http://www.volvooceanrace.org/team/djce/email/leg_5/20020319_frostad.html
http://www.volvooceanrace.org/press/raceoffice/all_legs/20020320_100bucks.html
On the experiences with flying fishes:
http://www.volvooceanrace.org/press/raceoffice/all_legs/20020321_Exocoetidae.html
http://www.volvooceanrace.org/team/tseb/email/leg_5/20020322_beavis.html
http://www.volvooceanrace.org/team/djce/email/leg_5/20020320_westergaard.html
On the girls giving the boys a hard time:
http://www.volvooceanrace.org/press/raceoffice/all_legs/20020317_Girl_Power.html
Volvo Ocean Race Position Report, Day 15, 0956 GMT
PS Yacht Latitude Longitude DTF CMG SMG TFHR DTL DTL-C ETA PO
1 ILBK 20 36.04N 065 12.60W 00888 311 11.2 264 0 +0 26 MAR 02 37
2 TYCO 20 25.32N 064 46.44W 00915 321 11.1 254 27 +5 26 MAR 02 25
3 AART 20 23.16N 064 45.60W 00917 321 10.5 249 29 +7 26 MAR 02 26
4 TSEB 19 55.68N 063 50.08W 00976 318 10.4 280 88 +7 26 MAR 02 17
5 AONE 19 01.92N 063 38.96W 01011 287 10.1 278 123 +7 26 MAR 02 26
6 NEWS 18 58.52N 063 36.64W 01015 288 10.2 282 127 +6 26 MAR 02 22
7 ATOO 19 12.72N 062 29.04W 01063 324 11.6 284 175 +2 27 MAR 02 9
8 DJCE 18 41.24N 062 42.52W 01068 318 11.5 292 180 +0 27 MAR 02 18
PS – Position; DTF – Distance to Finish; CMG – Course made good; SMG –
Speed made good; TFHR – 24 hours run; DTL – Distance to leader; DTL-C –
Distance to leader change; ETA – Estimated time of arrival; PO –
accumulated 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
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 2001,
the company sold 420,500 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.
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