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3.Wochenbericht - Leg 5
Southampton, England, Week 3, Leg 5
Long Way Home
The third week of leg five from Rio to Miami was dominated by illbruck’s
loss of the lead and Amer Sports One being struck by a lightning in during
a thunderstorm at the Bahamas. Once out of the stable trade winds, the
conditions got flukey again and the black clouds started to bother the
fleet.
In one of these clouds illbruck’s insurmountable lead started to tumble
after leading the fleet safely for several days and fending off constant
challenges from ASSA ABLOY and Tyco. This has coincided with the complete
loss of their lightweight running gennaker when the crew of John
Kostecki's pacesetters were caught out by a squall, which hit them,
mid-gybe.
"We had a big squall come through and the wind speed went up 15 to 20
knots very quickly," Kostecki said this morning. "The gennaker broke in
the middle of the gybe and it went into the water - we lost 100 per cent
of the sail," he added.
Predictably, Kostecki downplayed the effect the loss would have on the
armoury of their sail wardrobe - and their downwind speed in lighter airs.
"It'd be nice to have it," he admitted. “At this time we don't think it's
going to be too detrimental."
Talking to Tyco’s shore manager Ian Stewart, the situation looks entirely
different as he is convinced that “…the light downwind gennaker is the
toughest gap to fill with other sails. In two boat testing, when one boat
is using this sail at its optimum and the other one uses a wrong one, the
difference can be a couple of hundred metres in ten minutes. With a 30
mile lead and 600 miles to go it is a very critical situation, I’d be
nervous.”
ASSA ABLOY and Tyco, meanwhile, were locked together in their long-running
scrap for second place separated by only a mile. Some 50 miles astern SEB
has indextained a breathing space back to Amer Sports One who were in turn
locked into a nip and tuck tussle with News Corp. And at the back of the
fleet djuice dragons was on the brink of passing Lisa McDonalds all-women
crew on Amer Sports Too, just two miles behind.
Illbruck was lucky the next night when the wind backed slightly to the
east, giving them a wind-angle that suited the downwind sails that were
left on the boat after the loss of the light air gennaker. Still, Tyco and
ASSA ABLOY were able to close the gap to just 21 miles, which equalled
less than two hours sailing.
SEB, News Corp and Amer Sports One were sailing their own race for fourth
place with just 24 miles between them. As all three were sailing in
different lanes, fourth place was within reach of each of them.
The next night was tough for the German illbruck syndicate. The team saw
its respectable 15nm lead shaved down over night by Neal McDonald’s
Swedish entry ASSA ABLOY. With over a hundred miles reindexing to the
finish the question was – can Kostecki’s previously untouchable team be
broken?
Kevin Shoebridge’s Team Tyco, which has rarely been more than three miles
apart from ASSA ABLOY for the majority of the leg, has also dropped
slightly off the pace. They lost the use of their heavy air masthead
spinnaker at a key time allowing ASSA ABLOY to pass them to windward,
however they were fortunate enough to salvage the pieces. They were able
to fix the sail in a five hour repair job, but soon after resetting it,
the sail was damaged again, as Steve Hayles reported: “The bad news was
that in yet another squally cloud we had the same repaired chute up and
once again it let go. We were stuck with no spinnaker for a short while at
a very crucial point in the cloud (the bit were you get loads of wind in
front of it). It meant, although ASSA ABLOY was only a short distance in
front, that we got caught up in the cloud quite badly. This, combined
with the fact that we have been forced to sail with another spinnaker,
which is designed for a very different purpose and is much smaller, has
meant that for now at least they have opened out a lead of seven miles. “
Behind the titanic battle at the front of the fleet another duel was in
full swing. When Grant Dalton’s Amer Sports One was hit by lightning the
yacht lost the majority of her navigational equipment and also got trapped
under a windless black cloud. This gave Jez Fanstone’s Team News Corp the
chance they were looking for, and in just a matter of hours Fanstone was
several miles ahead. This was only the beginning of their rampage up the
fleet, since then News Corp pulled to within 10 miles of fourth placed
Team SEB and continued to rapidly close down the gap.
At the back of the fleet Lisa McDonald’s Amer Sports Too slipped back into
last place for the first time in a week. From the looks of things on
Virtual Spectator Knut Frostad’s djuice passed just a whisker to windward
of McDonald and her all-women crew. This was devastating news for the
girls, no doubt spurring them on to push harder still to try and regain
seventh (and not last) place. While putting all they have into holding off
djuice, they were hindered by technical problems. “It all started with
what we thought to be a minor fuel problem - getting it to the generator.
It has turned into a potentially serious situation (fortunately now under
control) which has totally disrupted the watch system, left us without use
of our generator, having to use our emergency fuel supply in this
situation, not knowing if we would have any electronics or fresh water at
all on a daily basis, lack of communication with the outside world and a
shattered race crew using every ounce of energy to battle the fire
breathing dragons trying to beat us while we are down”, wrote Lisa
McDonald, after regaining power for the computers and the Satcom C.
The race into Miami proofed to be the best yacht racing, sailors as well
as spectators could ever get. ‘No Surrender’ must have been illbruck’s
battle cry for this final stretch to Miami in the lightening breeze across
the Florida Current. For some time after entering the Providence Channel
it looked as if ASSA ABLOY was sailing faster and lower. Somehow illbruck
managed to keep up the pace and prevented the Swedish yacht, skippered by
Britain’s Neal McDonald from slipping away. ASSA ABLOY was half a mile to
leeward of illbruck for several hours. Their match race led them into the
shallows of the Great Bahamas Bank, where the water can be as shallow as
eight metres. A grounding would have be catastrophic at any time, but
even more so at that crucial stage!
But then in the middle of the Gulf Stream, both yachts were left totally
becalmed and started to drift away towards the north in the four-knot
current. Tyco, who was several miles behind got the wind first and it
looked for some time that there could be a big surprise for the finish.
Luckily enough, ASSA ABLOY, then three miles ahead of illbruck picked up
the breeze as well. Shortly later illbruck started sailing again,
finishing second behind ASSA ABLOY and just 13 minutes ahead of Tyco.
SEB managed to hold off News Corp, but had to face a protest by the race
committee after the collision with illbruck on day one. Amer Sports One
finished a disappointing sixth, their worst result in the whole race so
far.
Meanwhile djuice and Amer Sports Too were parked 150 miles away from the
finish, slowly drifting towards Miami. Knut Frostad, skipper of the
Norwegian Volvo Ocean Race entry djuice wrote desperate emails in total
disbelief with their fate. The girls reindexed silent due to technical
problems with their energy supply. Finally, just before entering the Gulf
Current, they picked up wind and sailed toward the finish.
Background Stories:
Illbruck’s loss of the spinnaker:
http://www.volvooceanrace.org/press/raceoffice/all_legs/20020324_pressure.html
Interviews on the dockside in Miami:
http://www.volvooceanrace.org/news/email/
American sailors on Leg 5:
http://www.volvooceanrace.org/press/raceoffice/all_legs/20020322_homeward_bound.html
Overall position after five legs pending protests
PS Yacht Leg 5 points Arrival Time Elapsed Time Combined Time PO Overall
Pos.
1 AART 8 27 MAR 02 05:49:57 017d 13h 19m 57s 107d 08h 16m 04s 28 2
2 ILBK 7 27 MAR 02 06:51:52 017d 14h 21m 52s 103d 06h 55m 30s 36 1
3 TYCO 6 27 MAR 02 07:04:15 017d 14h 34m 15s DNF leg 2 24 4
4 TSEB 5 27 MAR 02 09:46:20 017d 17h 16m 20s DNF leg 3 & 4 17 7
5 NEWS 4 27 MAR 02 10:56:28 017d 18h 26m 28s 106d 14h 31m 18s 23 5
6 AONE 3 27 MAR 02 13:17:40 017d 20h 47m 40s 104d 05h 28m 49s 25 3
7 DJCE 2 28 MAR 02 17:07:50 019d 00h 37m 50s 111d 07h 01m 49s 19 6
8 ATOO 1 28 MAR 02 19:03:27 019d 02h 33m 27s 118d 11h 57m 43s 8 8
Leaderboard
PS Yacht Points
1 illbruck 36
2 ASSA ABLOY 28
3 Amer Sports One 25
4 Tyco 24
5 News Corp 23
6 Djuice 19
7 SEB 17
8 Amer Sports Too 8
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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