Crusty undergoes surgery

ABN AMRO One watch captain back into the fray

Mark Christensen, watch captain on ABN AMRO One, who has been dogged by injury in this Volvo Ocean Race has recovered from key hole surgery on his knee and will be participating in the in port race on Saturday. Christensen tore his medial miniscus during the stop over in Melbourne but sailed on to Rio and Baltimore before deciding he needed to have surgery in order to ensure he could complete the race and not cause any long term damage.

Mark and the crew will also be joined by in port race grinding specialist Brian MacInnes who has been part of the in port race team since Spain and Tomasso Chieffi who is on board as tactician. Stepping off the boat for this in port race will be Brit Rob Greenhalgh.
Commenting on the crew list Mike Sanderson said: “We always wanted a rotation of our trimmers, up until now we have always had one person injured so the team has chosen itself. However, we talked about this in port race on the last leg and Rob was happy to step off and use this different viewpoint to look at the race from the outside. In this way we hope that we will all continue to learn and develop and Rob can give us some valuable feedback that we would not necessarily get otherwise.”

Rob Greenhalgh commented: “With Tomasso, Puck (Brian MacInnes) and no injuries we have 1 person too many. I am therefore taking this chance to step off the boat and get some rest in but I will be doing the in port race in Portsmouth which will be home waters for me!”

The in port race will be raced in the Chesapeake Bay, Baltimore, USA on Saturday 29 April.

The confirmed crew line up for ABN AMRO One for the in port race is as follows:

Mike Sanderson, New Zealand
Stan Honey, USA
Tony Mutter, New Zealand
Dave Endean, New Zealand
Brad Jackson, New Zealand
Sidney Gavignet, France
Justin Slattery, Ireland
Jan Dekker, South Africa
Tomasso Chieffi, Italy
Brian MacInnes, Canada
Mark Christensen, New Zealand