Ericsson completes qualifier

Neal McDonald and his team now up in Gothenberg

The Ericsson Racing Team has successfully completed its 2,000 nautical mile qualifying sail arriving into Gothenberg, Sweden on 15 August, after seven days at sea. It is compulsory for all teams entered for the Volvo Ocean Race 2005-06 to complete a non-stop ocean qualification passage of approximately 2000 nm, to prove themselves seaworthy before the race starts in November. Ericsson, the third VO 70 yacht to complete the voyage, did so with eight of her ten crewmembers on board.

The team left its training base in Vigo, Spain on August 8, joined by Ericsson Team Technical Director and five times Whitbread/Volvo Ocean Race veteran, Magnus Olsson. Experiencing 25 knots of winds in reaching conditions, off the Bay of Biscay, Ericsson clocked top speeds of 25 knots. They sailed up the west coast of Ireland and north of Scotland, into lighter winds, arriving into Gothenburg, Sweden at 11.00am Monday.

Skipper Neal McDonald gave his overview of the team's second long distance sail on board the VO70: "I am very happy with how the boat performed. It was great to have the majority of the racing crew on board, and a good opportunity to use Magnus Olsson's invaluable past experience and knowledge of the race. We set out from Vigo with two goals in mind; one, to complete the 2000 nm qualifyer and the second, to test as many different sails in as many different conditions as possible, and that's exactly what we did."

Jason Carrington, Construction Manager for the boat, sees completion of the test sail as a key milestone for the Ericsson Racing Team and the project as a whole: "To have launched the boat on 30 June and completed the qualifying sail five weeks later with no breakages, is a great achievement. She's a very exciting boat to sail with outstanding performance. She certainly requires a lot of respect and there are times when you have to throttle back. The key will be to find her limit - we still have some work to do but we are almost there."