Yachting: Fleet given a taste of wet, wild second leg

By JULIE ASH

It was meant to be the calm before the storm in Cape Town, just days out from the start of the treacherous second leg of the round-the-world race.

But the heavens decided to give the fleet a taste of what was ahead, pounding the Cape with 50-knot winds.

"It's wild and windy here, even before we leave," said New Zealand's Sharon Ferris on Amer Sports Too.

The Volvo race fleet leave on Monday bound for Sydney - a 6550-nautical-mile voyage through the Southern Ocean, which experiences some of the roughest weather on the planet.

"When you were learning to sail, they used to say the worst thing that can happen is that you can get wet," Ferris said. "But where we are going, the worst thing is you can get wet, cold and maybe even die.

"If you fall over the side, you will be very lucky to get back on the boat. But that is the risk you take.

"A lot of us have the attitude that we are living life to the fullest, but you take every single precaution to make sure you are safe."

The all-female Amer Sports Too finished last in the first leg, but were unlucky with the weather coming out of the Doldrums.

"We were 35 miles behind Amer Sports One and they got the wind and we didn't, and that escalated into 1500 miles. But that is just yacht racing," Ferris said.

Despite finishing a week after the leading yachts, Ferris said they were a lot more confident going into the second leg.

"We watched some of the videos of the other teams and all of us have realised that it is not just us struggling, it is not just us having problems with the main sails or running out of food or struggling to sleep because it is too rough.

"The guys are struggling just as much and they also lost a lot of weight."

Ferris said the Amer Sports Too crew lost an average 5kg to 7kg over 37 days.

After the first leg, Germany's illbruck, on eight points, led Grant Dalton's Amer Sports One by a single point.

Illbruck reached Cape Town two hours ahead of Dalton after 31 days.

Newscorp had six points, Tyco five, Assa Abloy four, SEB three, djuice two and Amer Sports Too one.

Dalton, who has competed in the race five times before, said the second leg was probably the toughest in the race.

"The Indian Ocean is the harshest piece of water on the planet that I have been in, other than maybe the Arctic Circle," he said.

"It always blows hard and there is always at least one really bad storm. It's cold, windy, a little wild and a little bit dangerous.

"It is a leg you want to get out of the way because it is not a very nice place. It is like going to the dentist - you have to go once a year and even if you don't want to go you're pleased when it's over."

Dalton said his heavier Frers-designed boat should suit the wild Southern Ocean.

"In theory, it should be good for us. The boat is big and it is very full under water, so it's a very easy boat to steer."

Dalton, who skippered Endeavour to success in the 1993-1994 race, said the new points system - where equal points were awarded for each leg, instead of the old system, when longer legs were worth more - made this event a lot more competitive.

"When we get to Auckland, we would have sailed halfway around the world, but only 33 per cent of the points of the race would have gone.

"We are still warming up, whereas four years or eight years ago it was half over. Now the whole format has changed. It's a much tougher race for the competitors."

Even though there are still eight legs to go, Dalton said many of the crews were already feeling the pressure.

"I still rate Assa Abloy, illbruck and Tyco," he said. "There is a lot of money involved and high expectations of sponsors.

"Already there are some chinks in the armour of some campaigns, which is good for us, because we are rock-solid.

"But there are no guarantees, there is nothing to suggest we can win this leg just because we came second in the first one."

For husband and wife Neal and Lisa McDonald, the second leg will test their marriage.

Neal, from Britain, has taken over as co-skipper of Assa Abloy after the highly-rated Dutchman Roy Heiner was ditched, and Lisa, from the United States, continues to lead Amer Sports Too.

It is the first time in the 30-year history of the race that a husband and wife have skippered rival yachts - both of them Farr-designed.

The fleet is expected to start arriving in Sydney about December 4.