Thursday, November 20, 2008

Ericsson 4, the first team to pass the scoring gate at Mauritius.

The term scoring gate, sounds exciting, as it was something the sailors were looking forward to, during the leg two. And they would be doing this again and again till the end of the race. I was equally excited to know the first team to pass the scoring gate.

This happened yesterday when Ericsson 4, skippered by Torben Grael, was the first boat to pass the Mauritius scoring gate at longitudinal 58 degrees east on the second leg of the Volvo Ocean Race 2008-09.
(Photo : Ericsson 4 on November 20th, 2008)

The team passed the line at 03:45 GMT and collected four points. The second team to cross the line was Ericsson 3 at 06:51 and gained 3.5 points.

The press release from Volvo Ocean Race further states, "Green Dragon, on the ropes for the latter part of this leg after breaking their boom, clinched the final podium place at 08:40. Team Russia (09:36) was fourth, Bouwe Bekking’s blue boat (11:40) won the battle of the Telefonica twins, while PUMA was piped for sixth by Telefonica Black (12:25) – by just nine minutes. Delta Lloyd rounded out the order at 13:21."

Bouwe Bekking, Skipper, Telefonica Blue says, "We are still not the quickest in the heavy running conditions, but we could this time control the damage and we are only 60 miles behind first place instead of 600 like in the first leg, after a similar amount of days in the same conditions."

Ian Walker,Skipper, Green Dragon, in his report says, "We hope to start the repair when conditions improve and when the temperature rises a bit for the glue and resin we have onboard to cure. I am not wildly optimistic, but I think the lads are looking forward to the challenge. I just have to stop them cutting the boat up in the process!"

So, what could the fleet expect in the days to come? According to Race Meteorologist, Jennifer Lilly, as the fleet heads north-east over the 24-48 hours "they will be looking forward to a few days of trade wind sailing."

The last few days have been tiring for the sailors. As Andreas Hanakamp, Skipper, Team Russia points out, " Everybody is glad we pointed the bow north as this promises warmer and, finally, drier weather. Being constantly wet and cold is tiring, I must admit. Already the northwest wind we are sailing in feels less chilly than the southwesterly we had for the last few days."

The fleet is heading to India with less than 3,000-nautical miles to cruise to reach Kochi.

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