Team Brunel and four other boats passed Cape Horn on Thursday afternoon, while Team Sun Hung Kai / Scallywag, badly hit after their crew member John Fisher died in an accident, is still struggling towards the west coast of Chile. Then came the next disturbing news: the animated boat of the Spanish team Mapfre suddenly pointed in the wrong direction on the Volvo Ocean Race tracker shortly before the Cape Horn Passage. A message from the organisers quickly clarified the situation: The Spaniards, who are leading the intermediate classification of the race, have officially interrupted the leg and have to repair their mast track, which was damaged five days ago. Three members of Mapfree's Shore team are on the road to help.
The Spanish team had repeatedly been able to control their damage in the brutal storm conditions of the past few days in the Southern Ocean with various emergency rigging solutions, but off Cape Horn this no longer seemed to be enough. At 18:32 UTC (20:32 German time), skipper Xabí Fernandez decided to interrupt the leg about six nautical miles west of Cape Horn in order to carry out a safe repair that would be sufficient for the remaining 2000 nautical miles to Itajaí.
In this case, the race rules state that a team may use its engine and accept help and spare parts from outside during a race interruption. The penalty for such a race interruption is a minimum of 12 hours. At the end of the interruption, the boat must continue sailing from the point where it interrupted the leg. In view of the growing lead of the five leading boats, the decision could mean a serious setback for the leaders in the overall standings. However, if the current weather forecasts are correct, the leading group could soon be slowed down by an area of high pressure - an opportunity for the pursuers who have fallen behind.
After the "mental milestone" of Cape Horn, Team Brunel's skipper Bouwe Bekking expects a possible "complete restart shortly after the Falkland Islands." While the Cape Horn roundings took place in a subdued mood among the teams, many sailors remembered their lost sailing friend John Fisher. Bekking said: "Even though we had a small celebration at the rounding, we also thought of John Fisher, whom we cannot forget." Very similar thoughts went through the mind of Charles Caudrelier, whose Dongfeng Race Team passed Cape Horn in third place behind Brunel and the Danish-American team Vestas 11th Hour Racing. "Of course, a Cape Horn passage like this is really nice and normally everyone is happy. But this time we can't forget what happened to John Fisher on 'Scallywag'. We can't be as happy as on a normal passage. In the mountains, people on the high peaks know about the risks. But at sea it happens much less often. So we are much more shocked. It's a relief that we've passed Cape Horn. But of course we are thinking a lot about David (Witt, ed.) and his team and John Fisher's family."
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
