Marcel goes east

Chance or choice for SEB?

After nearly two weeks of propping up the Volvo Ocean Race leaderboard Gurra Krantz's Team S EB have swept into the lead. Propelled by steady north east trade winds, the green Swedish boat is forging a lead that may ultimately prove impossible for the other teams to claw back. Forced east by her pit stop for a new mainsail headboard car, SEB continued well to the left of the main body of the fleet. When against all initial prediction the wind filled in from the left Krantz and his crew were launched.

While the others can only wait helplessly for the wind to arrive where they are, it would seem that Team SEB has captured the trade winds closer to the African coast than normal. When the others do finally catch the wind, SEB could be well gone. While many would argue that SEB have had a lucky break, her navigator, Marcel van Triest has a reputation as a gambler not afraid to pursue his own ideas. Did he go east because he had to or was he forced there by the stop in the Canary Islands? We will never know.

What is clear however is that the other teams don't like it. Grasping at every zephyr for the last week the leading five boats have battled for every inch only to see a boat they had all written out of the equation simply leap past them in one huge stride.

With talk of a 35 or even 40 day leg for some boats it will be interesting to see if a lack of food or fuel constitutes an emergency in the same way as a broken headboard appears to do. With the fleet routing around Ilha Trindade in the South Atlantic there is at least the theoretical opportunity for resupply at this point. Would this be allowed under the race rules?

The thought has certainly not passed Grant Dalton by. Reflecting on the antics of Brunell Sunergy in the last race, Dalton writes, "I can't remember a sustained period of no wind like this ever with the exception of maybe off Cape Horn, last race, inside the Falklands when four of us parked for three days and a boat 500 miles behind simply sailed round the outside of us having stopped to repair their generator." Dalton imagines that SEB could be long gone when he finally gets some wind. "I remember questioning at the time a rule that allowed a stop to fix something but applied no time penalty, I didn't understand it then and call me old fashioned, but I don't understand it now,' he says. The hardened competitor that he is, Dalton finds it hard to criticise what Krantz has done. "Good luck to SEB, maybe they were always going to go down the African coast and maybe they have fooled everyone" he says, adding wistfully, "did they actually get that headboard car? Maybe we should have a problem with our headboard near the first island. I guess that means if we stop for repairs (15 minutes) we can take on food and diesel which I have no doubt will be getting very low on this leg on all boats."

Food for thought indeed.

Knut Frostad, skipper of djuice, threw in his analysis." SEB is the most interesting case. Don't write them off. They are either in heaven or hell. As I know their navigator pretty well, Marcel van Triest, who sailed with us last time (on Innovation Kvaerner in the 1997-1998 Whitbread), they will take this opportunity all the way out. It will be a hero or zero result. We have models showing them 300 miles ahead of everyone in a week, and other models showing them 100 miles behind. It all depends on how much time they need to get to the wind along the African coast where it is strongest at the moment."

It is not only SEB who has made a big switch in the rankings with Dalton now down to sixth. Anything it seems could happen yet in this race.

Page two .... Report from Gurra Krantz.
Page Three.... Position report.