By JULIE ASH
Round-the-world yacht Assa Abloy has accused first-leg winner illbruck of cheating.
The Swedish entry lodged a protest against Germany's illbruck over alleged misuse of the internet in the first leg of the Volvo ocean race from Southampton to Cape Town.
Illbruck won in 31 days, 6 hours, 19
minutes, 49 seconds. Amer Sports One were second in 31d 08h 20m 56s and News Corp were third, arriving in Cape Town a day later.
For the first time crews have been allowed to access the internet while the race is on.
In previous races, weather information has been limited to data sent by the race office.
This time each team has been allowed to nominate 10 publicly available sites, which they must declare before the race starts.
Navigators pick sites where they can download information such as the weather forecast, currents and the location of icebergs.
On the protest form, Assa Abloy - who include New Zealanders Richard Mason and Stu Wilson in their crew - state that an additional suffix was needed to access illbruck's nominated site.
The required suffix was not publicly known and was not mentioned on the website, nor was it published in the leg one sailing instructions.
Amer Sports One skipper Grant Dalton said: "This is a very serious claim. Assa Abloy have accused them of cheating so they must be very clear of their facts. We will be watching with interest."
Meanwhile, sixth-placed SEB finally started to dive south towards Cape Town last night. Djuice and Amer Sports Too, in seventh and eighth, were still battling it out, but were not far from Cape Town.
