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To carry on round the world

Steven Morris

PHOTO: AP

Robin Knox-Johnston at the helm of his 60-foot yacht on Saturday.

London: For a while it looked like sailing legend Sir Robin Knox-Johnston had been one of the lucky ones. Barely 24 hours into the voyage that marked the 67-year-old's return to solo round-the-world yacht racing, gusts of more than 130 kmph and waves as high as a house had wreaked havoc in the Bay of Biscay, leaving three of the six yachts which left northern Spain so badly damaged they had to limp back to port.

The last despatch race headquarters had received from Sir Robin, the first person to sail around the world single handed, was more sanguine: ``Wind 58 knots, storm jib up, sea white with spray, surviving not racing, but OK. Irish coffee.''

But on Tuesday it emerged he and his appropriately-named craft, Saga Insurance, had endured the toughest ordeal of all. The vessel had partially capsized, the mast burying itself in the crashing waves. It was so badly damaged that the mainsail could not be raised. He had no choice but to head for dry land.

``Rolled last night,'' he said in his message to race headquarters. ``Section of mast track bent. Cant remove all the screws so sail stuck. Heading Corunna [La Coruna in northern Spain] but may take a day or two. Masthead instruments unserviceable but alarms keep going off. SatC still bleeping. Otherwise OK. RKJ.''

A later, more detailed message, said: ``Last night was a bad one, one gust reached 72 knots. The waves were huge and the sea white with spindrift. There was an enormous lurch at about 0120 and the boat was knocked on her side by a wave.'' The organisers of the Velux Five Oceans Challenge defended their decision to go ahead with the start on Sunday when they knew a storm was brewing. The six-month race left Bilbao in northern Spain heading for Fremantle in western Australia, the first of two stop-overs, six weeks and 19,000 km away.

David Adams, race director, said: ``The main problem is that you can't slow these formula one boats down and they simply crash on through — it is bone breaking. We always knew that this would be a nasty corner to negotiate. We were expecting strong winds of 40 knots, but none of the weather models or advisers predicted 60 knots. With such conditions, you can expect waves of 12-14 metres. —

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2006

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