Farr Behind

Ed Gorman reports as Grant Dalton storms away at the start of the Volvo Ocean Race.

The spectator fleet was smaller than four years ago, but the start of the first Volvo Ocean Race was no less impressive with the gate-crashers at the party, Grant Dalton's Amer Sports One, stealing the show.

In 10-15 knots of northerly breeze and on a chilly early Autumn afternoon on the Solent, the eight-strong fleet finally put all the pre-start training - that's four long years in the case of Illbruck but just four short months for Dalts - behind them and stormed off the Squadron line under full main and asymetric spinnakers.

Kostecki's crew on Illbruck were first to get their spinnaker drawing but the early leader was Gunnar Krant'z lime green thin boat, SEB, which swept away ahead of Kevin Shoebridge's Tyco - arguably the best looking of a pretty rum bunch. To weather was the still shocking sight of Knut Frostad's big Laurie Davidson gamble, Djuice, chased by Roy Heiner's Assa Abloy which was already locked into a pretty ordinary start.

The first drama was not long in coming as Lisa McDonald and her all-women crew watched aghast as their first spinnaker split in two as the Farr-designed Amer Sports Too bounced in the chop kicked up by the hundreds of spectator craft just minutes after the gun. To their credit, the crew did an excellent job of retrieving the sail and had a replacement flying in short order.

Dalton on the Nautor syndicate's "other" boat, the Mani Frers-designed Amer Sports One, started mid-line and then headed towards the Isle of Wight shore where he found more ebb tide and less disturbed water. With watch-leader Bouwe Bekking driving and Dee Smith keeping an eye on the competition, the Frers Volvo 60 revelled in the medium reaching conditions and quickly built a handy lead over the rest of the fleet.

Dalts was not at the wheel or even in the afterguard and spent much of the opening phase of this 32,0000-mile classic on the grinders or elsewhere in the middle of the boat. Looking in from the outside one sensed the relief among his crew as they made a stylish exit from the Solent with a reassuring turn of boatspeed. At times, as Nautor support boats came alongside, crewmembers on the rail punched the air in jubilation. Dalts himself confided to a journalist who was on board for the first hour: "It's too early to say and I don't want to speak too soon, but we're looking quite good here."