Downtown Volvo

Who will snap up Cayard first...

Just hours after the teams had left Cape Town bound for the Southern Ocean the Race Committee announced their intention to protest djuice and Amer Sports Too for infringing the Table Bay Traffic Separation Scheme.

The two teams were forced to race for over 20 days in the knowledge that no matter how hard they sailed through one of the harshest environments on earth their efforts could be worthless. It is unlikely a successful protest would result in complete disqualification from the leg, but a time or points penalty could be enough to ruin a perfectly good result.

After an investigation the Race Committee discovered that the Table Bay Traffic Separation Scheme is not an International Maritime Organisation adopted scheme. In English, this means that the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, or ColRegs, that the teams are sailing under does not apply to the Cape Town scheme. Therefor the Race Committee decided that because a protest based on non-compliance with Rule 10 of the ColRegs would fail in this case it would be inappropriate to proceed with the protests.

This decision opened up a debate within the fleet. Several of the competitors present at a meeting where this decision was announced expressed worries over possible issues for the remaining legs of the Volvo Ocean Race, in particular the application of the Collision Regulations. Towards the end of the event the fleet will be passing through the English Channel and North Sea which are scattered with numerous Separation Schemes. News Corp's Ross Field also brought up the interesting point that all boats in the fleet probably broke the ColRegs at some stage when travelling at unsafe and unseaman like speeds through the Southern Ocean. The debate continues...

Another protest followed...