Licking their wounds

Not even illbruck have come away unscathed

Positions at 1005 this morning

	Yacht	Lat	Long	DTF	CMG	SMG	DTL	DTL-C
1	illbruck	59 52.64S	087 05.20W	2923	062	12.7	-	-
2	Amer One	59 25.40S	088 03.24W	2947	062	11.8	24	+6
3	Tyco	60 19.36S	087 53.00W	2952	110	13.6	29	+2
4	Assa Abloy	60 14.84S	088 55.08W	2981	106	13.5	58	-2
5	News Corp	59 05.84S	089 44.52W	2996	102	13.0	73	-3
6	djuice	60 21.48S	089 27.64W	2998	103	13.6	75	-4
7	SEB	57 29.72S	102 16.80W	3396	064	7.3	473	+37
8	Amer Too	58 01.96S	103 53.12W	3441	050	12.9	518	+23

The beating the eight boats in the Volvo Ocean Race have been taking over the last few days in their attempt to race through the world's wildest ocean is taking its toll on boats and crew. To finish it is necessary not to destroy any of the major components of your boat and to finish first it is necessary to destroy as little gear as possible. On most of the boats competitive instincts have got the better of them and no doubt with crew exhaustion playing a contributing factor, many have crossed that dangerous Rubicon starting in prudence and ending in carnage.

Yesterday's devasting news of SEB's dismasting has sent a shock wave through the fleet, although with the boats being pushed as hard as they are in the Southern Ocean conditions it was a case of 'not if, but when' a boat would break.

SEB is currently making 6-8 knots towards Ushuaia on the southern tip of Argentina. Meanwhile in Sweden their shore team is in the process of making arrangements to get the spare mast transported to this remote corner of the globe - a interesting piece of logistics in itself. In his report today Gunnar Krantz reports that SEB was virtually thrown on to her side and believes it was this action which caused the mast to break.

Back on the race course the potent duo of Dalton and Cayard on Amer Sports One have been consistently taking miles out of illbruck and one of the reasons is down to gear damage on the German boat. "Last night we were passed by a front, which shut down the breeze for a few hours," reported John Kostecki this morning. "We changed to one of our lighter spinnakers and then the breeze suddenly built again and we broke the sail before we could get it down. Less than an hour later we ripped another spinnaker as we wiped out in a gybe as the wind quickly built to over 30 knots.

"While all of this was going on, Nitro [Noel Drennan] (our onboard sail maker) was down below sewing on another spinnaker, which we shredded in a 45-knot squall earlier in the day. Fortunately today, we had nice sailing conditions spinnaker running in 20-30 knots and both Nitro and Rosco [Ross Halcrow] have been able to repair two of the three ripped sails."

From on board the Bermudian boat skipper Kevin Shoebridge reported that conditions had dropped right off yesterday. "We have had some amazing rides over the past few days, right on the edge stuff where a slip up driving or trimming could be very expensive. We logged a 123-mile run in six hours this morning, not bad considering we had a spinnaker down for 45 minutes of that."

While Tyco is believed to be one of the boats still in reasonable shape, Kevin Shoebridge reports that the conditions have been taking their toll on the crew. "Nipper [Guy Salter] is recovering after stitches to the eye, Dave [David Endean] has taken a good hit on the knee and has a lot of fluid gathering there," continued Shoeby from on board. "Not a lot of sleep at present in these conditions with the manoeuvres somehow being more labour intensive and time consuming."

Yesterday the boats were diving south once again back into the Screaming Sixties, but at the 1000 sked illbruck and Amer Sports One now appear to have gybed back to the north west as Tyco, Assa and djuice remain furthest south. The first boats are due to round Cape Horn on Sunday/Monday.

Assa Abloy 's Mike Joubert ducks a wet one...