Five-boat match race

The leading five boats in the Volvo Ocean Race are in sight of one another.

The sails are all mended now on SEB

The impact of small separations is amply illustrated by Gurra Krantz onboard SEB. "Our slightly more northerly course is as expected a painful one. We tried our best to get all the way down in front of the others and we were 99 percent successful in that mission. To make that happen we had to give up as much as 19 miles of the lead at one sked and it was still not enough. Boats behind us could evidently get the bow down a few degrees and just sailed inside us on a more southerly course."

"If we look at our track we came back from northwest and gybed in front of the middle of the fleet. In hindsight we should have taken a bigger loss there and maybe given away the lead at that early stage. That would have given us the southerly track and maybe a better contact with the fleet. It is no drama though, only 10 miles between the leading boat and us."

No one is any doubt as to the intensity of the battle that lies ahead. "The match race is on," reports Peter Doriean from aboard djuice. "We met News Corp yesterday, lost them again and saw ASSA last night. But now ASSA, illbruck, and News Corp are all within eyeballing distance. So we have decided that this is what we are going to do."

The djuice boys he says are now pressing harder forward than ever before. "It is nice to know that we are doing well on boat speed," says Dorien who draws comfort from their speed in the battle to come. He is however clear on what lies ahead. "We can look forward to a tough race onwards to Eclipse Island and from there to Sydney.

Perhaps most interestingly of all, Amer Sports One, on her way to rendezvous with a fast fishing boat to drop off sick crewman, Keith Fitzpatric is consistently recording the highest speeds in the fleet. Though the change of course to the north was initially made in order to close the coast more quickly, who would bet against Dalton turning it to his advantage?

Further back still, Amer Sports Too is blasting along at a constant 16 knot on a broad reach. Though it is unlikely that they will close enough tojoin the battle for the lead they could at least be better placed by the time the fleet reaches Eclipse Island.


Gurra Krantz and Marcel van Triest ponder where to go next.

Page three... an e-mail from Mark Rudiger
Page four.... position report