17 April 2012
Pit stop and co-skipper swap for Dutch Class40 Sec. Hayai
With Conrad Colman and Scott Cavanough falling foul of windless clouds north of the Equator with fleet leader Cessna Citation and then tangling with huge rafts of seaweed, dropping 45 miles to the chasing pack in the past 24 hours, the South African duo on Phesheya-Racing chased Financial Crisis across the Celox Sailing Scoring Gate off the coast of Brazil in third place, as it was confirmed that Nico Budel and Erik van Vuuren on fourth-placed Sec. Hayai will pull into the Brazilian port of Fortaleza.
Nick Leggatt and Phillippa Hutton-Squire took Phesheya-Racing across the Celox Sailing Scoring Gate at 15:30 GMT on Monday, squeezing round the north-eastern corner of Brazil 27 miles offshore and just 11.5 hours behind Marco Nannini and Sergio Frattaruolo on Financial Crisis. Later the same day, seven hours after Leggatt and Hutton-Squire netted four points at the gate, Budel and Van Vuuren crossed the virtual line and gybed onto port, heading for the coast having cleared Ponta de Calcanhar.
At 15:00 GMT on Tuesday, Sec. Hayai was 70 miles from Fortaleza where 72-year-old Budel will leave the boat and return to Europe. Having dismasted early in Leg 2 and missed out on GOR Legs 3 and 4, Budel and his team worked hard on returning to the GOR for the final two legs, re-joining the fleet in Punta del Este, and this most recent decision has not been easy. “I have to leave the race for important business in Holland,” explains Budel who runs a highly successful property development company in the Netherlands. “Originally, I’d planned to handle this business after the race had finished, but it has arrived earlier and I really cannot let someone else deal with it and it is imperative that I’m in Holland.”
Since the decision was made last week, Budel and Van Vuuren have been in constant contact with the GOR Race Committee to find a solution. For 42-year-old Van Vuuren to continue to Charleston single-handed would mean disqualification from Leg 4 and a lonely cruise north, but swiftly a practical plan was formed to find an appropriate skipper with the right skills and sailing qualifications. “The boat will continue without me,” confirms Budel. “Erik and his girlfriend will race the boat on to the finish line in Charleston,” adds the Dutch skipper.
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