Volvo Ocean Race - Leg 2 Day 17

Brasil 1 dismasted

At 06.30 UTC Brasil 1 dismasted in position: 40,47.61S , 89,18.36E. She is currently 1200 miles from Fremantle and 1300 miles from Albany, south western Australia. Skipper, Torben Grael, sent the following statement:

“At the time Brasil 1 was sailing downwind in a west north westerly breeze of about 18 knots under clear sunny skies.

“The mast broke in three pieces after what seems to be a fitting failure at the lower end of the port V1 (vertical shroud). The turnbuckle eye broke horizontally across with half of the fitting remaining on the boat and half on the shroud. No other signs of failure have been found so far

“All the crew is safe and sound and we're still in the process of cleaning up and salvaging as much material as possible. Due to the clement weather conditions we are trying to salvage the final top section of the mast from spreader four to the top. If we're successful this would mean that all pieces have been salvaged.

“Once this has been completed we will make a jury rig and sail in the direction of Eclipse Island which also happens to be our nearest landfall.

“No decision about retiring from the leg has been taken.”

Meanwhile, the rest of the fleet is making good progress towards the finish of leg two in Melbourne. Wind speeds vary from ABN AMRO ONE (Mike Sanderson) to the north of the fleet having 25 knots, while ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse) is enjoying 33 knots. Movistar (Bouwe Bekking) shows no signs of slowing down, positioned 83 nm to the south sailing in 20 knots of breeze, and Pirates of the Caribbean (Paul Cayard), which restarted the leg in very light breeze yesterday, has a miserly 13 knots of breeze. The team left the Australian coast and took a southerly course immediately, some 131 nautical miles to the west of the track taken by the Dutch boats. Stronger breeze is expected for her in the next few hours.

Position Report: (10:00 GMT)

ABN1 - ABN AMRO ONE
ABN2 - ABN AMRO TWO
BRA1 - Brasil 1
INGB - ING Real Estate Brunel
ERIC - Ericsson Racing Team
MOVI - movistar
POTC - Pirates of the Caribbean

DTF: Distance to finish, SMG: Speed made good, DTL: distance to leader, DTLC: distance to leader change; the difference between the distance from the boat to the leader taken at the time of the last six hour poll, and the distance from the boat to the leader at the previous poll

LPTS: leg points at first scoring gate

TLPTS: total leg points to date inc. scoring gate points if yacht maintains current position

RPTD: Race points to date inc. in-port race points, scoring gate points and leg points the yacht would score if yacht maintains current position.

OVERALL: position in race overall if yacht maintains current position.