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Ocean racing separates men from the blue bloods

Neal McDonald, skipper of Ericsson Racing Team, steers into Cape Town, South Africa, on Dec. 3, concluding the crew's first leg of the Volvo Ocean Race. PHOTO: EPA

If the first leg of the round-the-world Volvo Ocean Race is an indicator of the shape of seas and waves and boat malfunctions to come, the 59,264km, eight-month race may dispel the notion of sailing as the sport of blue-blazered Britons sipping cocktails at sundown.

The first night out, when the seven boats set sail from Vigo, Spain, on Nov. 12, they were met with winds that gusted past 70km and waves that peaked at more than 12m.

"It's a big contrast to go from being onshore to being thrown into a full gale in wild seas in a pitch-black night; normally you like a few days to warm into it," the British skipper Neal McDonald said from Cape Town, shortly after he completed the 10,300km of the first leg.

McDonald, a veteran of four round-the-world races, is at the helm of Ericsson, which arrived in Cape Town fourth.

Two boats -- Movistar, from Spain, and the Disney-backed Pirates of the Caribbean, the only American entry -- were forced to return to port for repairs after that first night and will pick up the race on the second leg, to Melbourne, Australia.

The first leg was won by Mike Sanderson, a New Zealander at the helm of ABN AMRO One, which arrived in Cape Town on Dec. 1.

Sanderson and his crew of nine set a world record for a monohull, covering 880km in 24 hours. But it was hardly all smooth sailing.

Sanderson said that in his e-mail messages, he often described their battles with the elements with the phrase, "we've been firefighting all night."

After the last time he wrote it, a nasty electrical fire broke out on board. The fire was extinguished, but he said he would be careful before using that phrase again.

Such conditions make for tough sailing in any circumstances, but with a new class of boats, known as Volvo 70s, which, McDonald said, are "more powerful, more complicated and more fragile" than the previous Volvo 60s, "it's really like learning a new set of rules."

"We had the 60s for 12 years," he said. "You have to treat these new boats with a bit more respect; you can't push them around."

The 70s feature 62 percent more sail area, said James Dadd, the Volvo's chief measurer.

Bigger sails mean faster boats but less stability, so the 70s have added a canting keel, which can be positioned on the side opposite to the sail.

"It's basically like having four tons of guys hiking out on trapezes," said Dadd, who added that the new boats had the potential to reach speeds much greater than the previous class.

That is, when the keels are functioning properly. Pirates of the Caribbean, skippered by the American Paul Cayard, who won the round-the-world race then known as the Whitbread in 1998, said he was on the water only 16 hours before he realized the boat was not going to make it to Cape Town. A breakdown in the keel structure had threatened the watertight integrity of the boat.

McDonald had a related problem on Day 18 -- what is known as a "free Willy" situation because of the keel's resemblance to a killer whale.

It happened on a pitch-black night: a huge bang sent the crew scrambling to figure out what had happened, and as they responded, "the boat simply heeled over out of control, practically capsizing!" McDonnald wrote in an e-mail message. "The keel wasn't going where we wanted it to go; it was going where it wanted to go."

The crew got the keel locked into place, but the last 1,600km to Cape Town were much slower than it would have liked.

Pirates of the Caribbean, Movistar and Ericsson are all designed by Farr Yacht Design in Annapolis, Maryland.
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