09.05.2006
LEG SIX DAY 3, ABN AMRO ONE FINISH
On the dockside with MIKE SANDERSON, skipper
It was a very sweet victory. The win on the first leg is still the
sweetest of all but as we are closing into the finish they are getting
sweeter and sweeter. It would be nice to have some breeze for the start so
we could show the people who have come out to see us what these boats can
do. We seem to be drifting out of starts and into finishes. It’s not good
for us putting on the show of the Volvo Open 70.
It was pretty wet and wild! It was quite a stressful race for us because
we realised we had to push the boat outside the red line which I keep
talking about and pulled back from. If we wanted to win this leg we were
going to have to push it pretty hard up wind. The reason we chose to do
that is because of the points that are up for grabs and it was our boat’s
conditions. As Baltimore proved we still have to earn the points when it’s
our turn. A bad race for us is when the conditions are right for us and we
don’t grab the points. Saying that, we are here in one piece so we got
away with it so we are lucky.
Brad Jackson took a bit of a fall, so he spent a good chunk of the time
bed ridden. Maybe he’s got big plans for New York.
I have been very lucky to spend a good amount of time here preparing for
Trans-Atlantic record attempts and we had the white boat here on the tour
of the East Coast last year. I love sailing into New York harbour, it’s
fantastic. Sailing past the Statue of Liberty is always a fantastic sight
however many times you have done it.
On the dockside with STAN HONEY, navigator
The most heinous part was the first part of the Chesapeake where we got
pretty far behind. We managed to catch up most of the way, and pass three
or four boats by the mouth of the Chesapeake and so that was a relief and
we got within striking range of the leaders.
Sometimes, when you fall behind like that, particularly when you are
expecting the breeze to build towards the bottom of the Chesapeake, you
are afraid that the boats ahead of you could get launched. But
fortunately we found a way to get back into the pack before that happened,
with a couple of good shifts and a short cut.
I think we only saw 40 knots briefly, but there was a lot of 25s and some
30s on the nose. The sea state wasn’t too bad, but there was just a lot
of beating and a lot of tacking. That was the toughest.
Everybody is pretty tired, we’ve had very little sleep. We were mostly
sprinting it.
It is always fun to sail here. I have had the pleasure to sail here a
fair amount on Playstation and it is nice to go by Liberty, Governor’s
Island and the Battery. It’s a beautiful harbour. The pilots and
traffic control couldn’t have been more helpful.
Sacha Oswald Volvo Ocean Race Press Officer in New York:
Mob: +44 7816 275 498 Email: Sacha.Oswald@volvooceanrace.org
ABN AMRO ONE does it again
ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson) extended their overall lead this morning when, at 0407 local time, 0808 GMT, the Dutch team arrived in the ‘Big Apple’ to post another win, this time the shortest leg of the course, leg six from Baltimore/Annapolis.
“It feels lovely to be here in first place after the week we’ve had and especially after the result we had in the Baltimore in-port race,” commented an exhausted Sanderson (NZL). “We have had a pretty bumpy ride and it has been pretty tense for us. It feels good to be here with the boat in one piece. We haven’t slept at all. Navigator Stan Honey (USA) and I have had a really tough time. The skipper doesn’t sleep enough, and now I shall do lots of sleeping in the city that never sleeps,” he added.
This has been one of the toughest legs for the Volvo Ocean Race fleet in terms of lack sleep, with the boats having to tack every hour or so, as they thrashed up wind after suffering light air on the way down the Chesapeake Bay. There is very little time to recover on this short pit stop in New York, as the start of leg seven, the trans-Atlantic leg of the course to Portsmouth, UK, starts on Thursday this week.
The next four boats are all within two miles of each other, fighting for podium positions and are estimated to cross the line later this morning.
LEG SIX DAY 03, 09.05.06, xx00 GMT POSITION REPORT
YACHT
Latitude
Longitude
DTF
SMG
DTL
DTLC
PTLPS
ETA
ELAPSED TIME
POP
OVERALL
1
ABN1
40 42.74N
074 01.12W
00000
00.0
00000
+00000
7.0
09/05/06 08:07:36
001d 15h 07m 36s
70.5
1
YACHT
Latitude
Longitude
DTF
SMG
DTL
DTLC
PTLPS
ETA
POP
OVERALL
2
POTC
40 26.31N
073 47.26W
00022
05.9
00000
+00023
6.0
09/05/06 10:50:__
47.5
3
3
MOVI
40 24.72N
073 48.32W
00024
05.1
00002
+00021
5.0
09/05/06 11:00:__
49.0
2
4
ERIC
40 24.97N
073 49.33W
00024
06.0
00002
+00022
4.0
09/05/06 11:00:__
34.5
6
5
BRA1
40 24.66N
073 49.36W
00024
06.2
00002
+00023
3.0
09/05/06 11:02:__
40.0
5
6
BRUN
40 10.70N
073 50.37W
00038
05.8
00016
+00022
2.0
09/05/06 12:44:__
2.5
7
7
ABN2
40 01.84N
073 37.93W
00048
10.0
00026
+00021
1.0
09/05/06 14:02:__
42.0
4
ABN1 ABN AMRO ONE
ABN2 ABN AMRO TWO
BRA1 Brasil 1
BRUN Brunel
ERIC Ericsson Racing Team
MOVI movistar
POTC Pirates of the Caribbean
DTF: distance to finish, SMG: Speed made good, DTL: distance to leader,
DTLC: distance to leader change; the difference between the distance from the boat to the leader taken at the time of the last six hour poll, and the distance from the boat to the leader at the previous poll
SGPTS: points scored at scoring gates on this leg to date
PLPTS: projected leg points
PTLPTS: projected total leg points including actual points from scoring gates
POP: projected overall points including actual points from scoring gates
OVERALL: projected position in race overall if yacht indextains current position
Lizzie Green Press Officer at race headquarters:
Tel: +44 1489 554 832, Mob: +44 7801 185 320
Email: lizzie.green@volvooceanrace.org
Sophie Luther Press Assistant at race headquarters
Mob: +44 7956 285548 email: sophie.luther@volvooceanrace.org
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