Daring Indian Ocean repair job keeps Chinese boat in the hunt
Alicante (Spain) (AFP) - Frenchman Kevin Escoffier effected a mid-race repair, dangling 15 metres (50 feet) above deck, to keep Dongfeng Race Team's Leg 2 challenge on track in the Volvo Ocean Race on Thursday.
With the boat bobbing in some 15 knots of winds, the 34-year-old bowman from St Malo was winched up the mast to bond together a track that had become detached.
The part enables attachments to run smoothly up the mast, allowing the height of the mainsail to be adjusted easily. It works like a curtain rail.
Volvo Ocean Race watch producer, Mark Covell, who is a silver medallist from the 2000 Sydney Olympics, told AFP: "This was a tough job. If the wind is blowing hard, you will be battered about like a rag doll up the mast."
Dongfeng, the Chinese entry in the world's toughest professional crewed offshore race, lost some time through the process but were still less than six miles off the lead roughly halfway through the 5,200 nautical miles (nm) of the second stage between Cape Town and Abu Dhabi.
The American skipper of Team Alvimedica, Charlie Enright, had double cause for celebration when he took the lead early on Thanksgiving Day in the Indian Ocean as the fleet approached the Réunion Island.
The joint U.S./Turkey boat led by a sliver-thin 1.9nm from Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing with MAPFRE (Spain) in third, 0.6nm further adrift (0940 GMT).
Even the seventh and last-placed boat, the all-women crewed Team SCA, were only 15nm behind the leaders.
The closeness of the racing underlined again how the introduction of the Volvo Ocean 65, a one-design boat, into the event had successfully levelled the playing field for the nine-month marathon race.
It started in October and is scheduled to be completed on June 27 in Gothenburg, Sweden, having visited 11 ports and every continent.
Latest placings: 1 Team Alvimedica (U.S/Turkey), 2 Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, 3 MAPFRE (Spain), 4 Team Brunel (Netherlands), 5 Team Vestas Wind (Denmark), 6 Dongfeng Race Team (China), 7 Team SCA (Sweden)
