AFTER a stopover in Melbourne during which the teams beset by technical failures in the Volvo Ocean Race did what racing sailors hate — namely, add weight to their hulls at the expense of weight in the keel bulb — the now six-strong fleet set sail yesterday on the third leg to Wellington.
With a belt-and-braces feel to the repairs on Movistar, Pirates of the Caribbean and Ericsson, which have each missed one leg of the race, the hope is that on this short, 1,450-mile stage to New Zealand, we will finally have a yacht race worthy of its stature.
The trend has been to use heavier materials at the expense of speed, with Bouwe Bekking opting for a fully stainless-steel keel movement system on Movistar, while Neal McDonald’s Ericsson and Paul Cayard’s Pirates of the Caribbean have gone in a similar direction.
Torben Grael’s Brasil 1, which had to be transported by truck across southern Australia after losing its mast on the second leg from Cape Town, is back with a new rig. Meanwhile, Brunel, the Australian entry, has taken the unusual step of withdrawing from the race with the aim of re-entering in Baltimore in the sixth leg with a radically modified boat.
The key question now is whether any of the strugglers can catch the ABN Amro boats, which have made the most of their advantage of a year-long build-up to the race. Although Movistar had the same time as the ABN pair, all the other boats were either late or very late and have paid a high price for their lack of preparation.
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Worryingly for their rivals, the early position reports last night after a lightwind start out of Melbourne, showed Mike Sanderson’s race-leading ABN Amro 1 once again out in front as the fleet ran through Bass Strait towards the Tasman Sea.
This short hop to Wellington is followed by a two-day stop in New Zealand where crews will be refused any outside assistance, including having shore crew on board or taking on any extra tools, food or clothing. If they receive outside help they will incur a two-hour time penalty at the restart in Wellington on Sunday when the long Southern Ocean leg to Rio de Janeiro begins.
McDonald knows that it is already looking a tall order for his crew on Ericsson, in sixth place, to catch up with Sanderson. “We’ve got a lot on,” he said shortly before the Melbourne restart. “There is no doubt about it. I think we’ve got to be realistic — if either of the ABN boats have a clean sweep in terms of finishing legs in good positions, then we’ve got a lot on. Having said that, it is a very long way and in a race like this, anything can happen.”
HOW THEY STAND
LEG THREE (Melbourne to Wellington): 1, ABN Amro 1 (M Sanderson) 32.5pts; 2, ABN Amro 2 (S Josse) 25; 3, Movistar (B Bekking) 18; 4, Pirates of the Caribbean (P Cayard), 16.5; 5, Brasil 1 (T Grael) 16; 6, Ericsson (N McDonald) 14.5.