Grant gains again

Amer Sports One is pulling away in the Volvo Ocean Race while Assa Abloy wallows.

As much to his own surprise as anyone else, Grant Dalton aboard Amer Sports One continues to lead the Volvo Ocean Race. "There is a big element of luck, in what has happened even if there is a strategy in place," says Dalton. The basis of the strategy stems from the fact that both Dalton and navigator, Roger Nilson, have been burnt many times by boats getting south of them, picking up breeze and disappearing. "It happened to us on Merit Cup with EF in exactly the same place four years ago," says Dalton, adding "So we came round Trinidade headed south, no questions, no discussion." News Corp and Tyco crossed their bow heading east and as the wind swung, favouring that side, Amer Sports One tacked with them. "As soon as we could, we got back onto starboard to resume our original strategy" recalls Dalton.

Though he recognises that the lead his lead is tenuous at best Dalton is at least in a better position than Assa Abloy. "It must appear we are on some wild flyer and why didn't we stick with Illbruck?" asks Mark Rudiger. Having decided to go north east Assa Abloy missed a small shift which forced the boats near to her back south. "That's when a small separation turned into a big one," says Rudiger. "This morning a small high bubble formed and drifted slowly north right over us leaving us becalmed while the other boats south kept moving. We have been struggling with every puff to fight northeast. We were within sight of the wind line before dark, which would have kept us in good shape, but it just receded and now we're almost stopped again. This is frustration with a capital F," says an anguished Rudiger. He goes on to gave his chances of success as 60 per cent and claims to be happy with that. "Now we must be patient and keep fighting for every inch and pray the wind comes to us and the other boats still have to slow up to get through their next transition."

The next big move will come in getting to the band of breeze that lies between the South Atlantic High and a developing low pressure to the south. The boats that get here first will speed up and should pull away. Onboard SEB, Gurra Krantz has worked it out all too clearly. "Once the leading group catches the new northerly breeze they are gone. It can be twice the distance we have now if we are unlucky. The only boats that might get trapped a bit longer could be ASSA ABLOY and Tyco."

From illbruck, Jamie gale reports, "On deck we are starting to hear whispers of reaching in 20 knots in a few days, which is something to look forward to adding as the slow conditions, and too many days at sea are beginning to show on some of our crew. Lately Cheese's [Dirk de Ridder] fascination with food has turned from an obsession to more of a disorder," reports Gale. "Today Richard Clarke (in charge of food) did a stock-take of what we have left and what we have saved up so far and divided it up and set meal allocations for the remainder of the leg. We are in pretty good shape and the restrictions are far from severe but you wouldn't have known from the way Cheese was hovering around, peering over his shoulder and generally making loud protestations. But what was really concerning was when Soapy (Ian Moore) threw his snickers bar over the side as an offering to the wind gods. While the rest of us were mentally putting a large question mark in the back of our minds regarding Soapy's own mental stability, a distressed Cheese attempted to throw himself into the sea after the snickers bar and it was only a good tackle from one of the blokes that prevented a serious man overboard drama."

Page two.... report from News Corp navigator, Nick White
Page three.... position report