THE VOLVO OCEAN RACE

I don’t know if many of you keep up with sailing as a sport, or have followed the sailboat race going on for the past six months or so called the VOLVO OCEAN RACE .

This is a crewed (in other words, not a single handed race. Each boat has 10 men) sprint around the world. It was originally called the Whitbread and has gone through other appellations since its inception. Nonetheless, this year the racers were sailing boats called Volvo 60s.

Eight boats started the race, all had to stop part way and the race was nearly cancelled when a design flaw in the boats (they are all the same) was discovered. That was repaired and the boats continued on without much ado (YOU try sailing around the world without “much ado!”) until last week on the “sprint” leg from New York to the UK.

One sailor was swept overboard (32-year old Dutch sailor, Hans Horrevoets, aboard ABN Amro Two) and drowned, and then, an hour after the crew transferred his body to a Dutch warship, they had to go back to rescue the 10-man crew of another competitor, Movistar.

This is a seafaring tale that deserves inclusion into the annals of man against the sea stories. A very well done video report (British, naturally) of the first shoreside interview of the ABN Amro Two team can be found HERE .