Wind picks up

King Harald drops on handicap but Nokia forced to retire, reports Bob Fisher

"Disappointed, very disappointed, thoroughly p%*$ed off," was how Magnus Olsson described his state of mind after being forced to retire from the Eurocard Gotland Runt, the eighth race of the Nokia Oops Cup 2005.

The perpetual grin was still on his face when he continued: "The main halyard lock system failed near Visby when we were in battle with Stena Sovcomflot; the mainsail dropped two feet down the track and we tried every way to fix it, but nothing worked."

He described how the crew had first tried to keep the sail up on the halyard alone, but the loadings were too great; then they put a man aloft with a block to lash to the mast, but there was nothing he could attach it to. ‘We thought we might wreck the mast completely," he admitted.

"With the two handed race [to Poland] starting tomorrow, we decided to retire and sail here where we could make effective repairs in time for that race," Olsson continued. The plans were to have a crane to lift the mast off the boat and repair the lock properly, re-step the mast tomorrow morning and sail to Sandhamn for the start.

Magnus, the unstoppable optimist, allowed the grin to disappear momentarily when he said, "it’s a big, big disappointment, and because I am responsible, I’ll probably be fired." And then the chuckle returned: "You’ll have to save me from the firing squad – don’t be late!"

Meanwhile...

Playing a conservative game, Einar Sissener’s Al Capone III is retaining her overall lead in the IMS European Championship at the halfway stage of the long race that concludes the series, the Eurocard Gotland Runt.

At the rounding of Hoburgen, at the southernmost point of the 362 mile course, Al Capone III, from Norway, was in eighth place, giving her a provisional points total of 33.25. Her nearest rival had become Horst Mann’s Judel/Vrolijk 42 L+H Hispaniola the corrected time leader at the halfway stage. The German boat had 66.25 points.

King Harald’s Fram XV was still the leader on the water, but had slipped to 30th of the 37-strong fleet on corrected time. Despite this huge penalty, with the points for this race being trebled, Fram XV was in third place overall.

The overnight breeze rose to as much as 24 knots as the boats beat their way to Visby and they then have a close reach to Almagrundet lighthouse in an easterly breeze of 11 knots.