Who will win leg 2?

James Boyd looks at the form for the Volvo Ocean Race's first Southern Ocean leg

Grant Dalton's campaign with the German Frers Junior-designed boat is very much an unknown still. Yes, she came second on the first leg and was leading it for most of the final week, but how much of this success was down to a lucky break with the weather and how much was down to the sheer pace of the boat remains to be seen.

The Frers design should be better in the brisk conditions the boats will experience down south. She is fuller in the ends, has a little more freeboard and generally more volume in her hull making for a more 'powerful' hull shape. This should allow the crew to push harder and hang on to their sail area for longer.

They have massive experience in the crew from Dalton and navigator Roger Nilson, both now on their seven circumnavigations and the talented tactician and driver Dee Smith.

However success in the Southern Ocean is all down to preparation and training which the team still lacks. The crew as a whole have yet to learn how to work as a cohesive unit in the hard running and reaching conditions they will face in the next few days. This will almost certainly mean more wipe outs and a slower recovery from them. The result of this may be more breakage and possible loss of sails which is what prevented them fending off illbruck at the finish of leg one.

"We're ready to go basically, but every day is important to us," commented Dalton prior to the start. "We're still in catch-up mode. We just can't get out of it, we were trying to catch up before the start and now we're trying to catch up for the restart. I've always said that by Auckland we will have caught up as such. It will be interesting and we will have to wait and see."

Crew:
Phil Airey, Bouwe Bekking, Jeff Brock, Claudio Celon, Grant dalton, Keith Kilpatrick, Chris Nicholson, Roger Nilson, Peter Pendleton, Pepe Ribes Rubio, Stefano Rizzi, Dee Smith.