| ABN AMRO ONE WIN RACE TO SCORING GATE, ROUNDING CAPE HORN |
| Thursday, 02 March 2006 |
At 1238GMT today ABN AMRO ONE, current leaders in the Volvo Ocean Race officially left the desolate and isolated Southern Ocean as they rounded one of sailings greatest landmarks, Cape Horn. They are now heading for Strait of Le Maire and then on up to Rio where this gruelling leg of the race will finish. For British sailor Rob Greenhalgh and US navigator, Stan Honey today marked a significant moment in their ocean racing career. Not only did ABN AMRO ONE pick up 3.5 more points to add to their tally but for these two sailors rounded the legendary Cape Horn for the first time.
On a day when another boat in the race, movistar, reported taking on excessive amounts of water and believed they might sink if they could not limit the problem, for Mike and the team these points are hard fought. Not for the first time in this race, ABN AMRO ONE have watched as the chasing pack have eaten into their lead and forced them to push harder than perhaps they might have chosen.
Mike Sanderson commented soon after they rounded ‘the Horn’: “We’re pleased to be here – it is a massive feeling of relief. It hasn’t been the most fun couple days to be fair. Just running down to Cape Horn in 30+ knots of wind with all the boats pretty close and everyone pushing hard has made it quite interesting. It was tricky, we’d give up some miles in a sched and it would be ‘are we taking it too easy’ – so it was walking the dreaded fine line. It made it all the more stressful.
Now that we have got round, we are now busily trying to dry this thing out. It is wet as a fish down here. But our sleeping bags are dry and we have waterproof gear bags, so we do have dry food, dry clothes and dry beds so we are pretty lucky by the sound of things…
We heard about Movistar - it was terrible to hear. I was really worried. It doesn’t matter whether you’re in the Transatlantic fleet in the Open 60s or Volvo 60s, a couple of days of running excess of 30 knots everyone is living on borrowed time a little bit. I thought something might happen to someone but you always hope that it won’t. For the fleet to hang so tough for so long was incredible but you don’t wish what happened to movistar, on anyone. We are all glad that they are o.k. and wish them all the best in getting to land.
For us now it is a little bit dreary but it is great to be heading north. We got the boat around the Horn in one piece, we haven’t broken any sails and we got more points so we are happy. We’ve had a fortunately Southern Ocean trip. Last night gave us a little taste of what it could have been on a different time or a different day - we could have certainly had our hands full. Thank you Southern Ocean for a safe passage.. We know you have treated us kindly..”
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