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LEG NINE FINISH - 24TH MAY 1998
SKIPPERS QUOTES GUNNAR KRANTZ (SWEDISH MATCH) "I feel we lost something but we still gained a little bit. We are still on the podium. All in all I am bitterly disappointed. Somehow we made a great start in the race, we caught up in the middle and we made a few mistakes in the end. Congratulations to Grant for second place and to Paul for winning. It's been a great race, 32,000 miles is over. REGARDING PROTESTS: Merit Cup - "We are not filing a protest." Silk Cut - "We are not filing a protest." Innovation Kvaerner - "We are not filing a protest." LAWRIE SMITH (SILK CUT) "Silk Cut was planning a protest because at the start of the race one of EF's boats just came straight across us and made us gybe. And at the time you get very annoyed but afterwards you settle down. I guess it's not their fault but it was very annoying." KNUT FROSTAD (INNOVATION KVAERNER) "We were protesting Toshiba for sailing outside the prohibited area - whether it was legal or not legal to be in. But we are not protesting and the race is over, so, have a nice day." GRANT DALTON (MERIT CUP) "We were following Knut about Toshiba being inside the exclusion zone but we are not doing it now." GENERAL DENNIS CONNER (TOSHIBA) "I would like to congratulate Grant on sailing a wonderful leg. He deserves the win. He was in the lead. Brunel tacked around France and got in the current and took away the lead momentarily but he sailed smart, tacked back towards Ireland at the right time and when a 100 degrees shift came to the left he tacked just short of Paul, and Lawrie and Kvaerner. Sailed towards the English Channel towards a well deserved victory. So, good on you Merit Cup. I would like to take this opportunity to say how proud I am of Paul Cayard. I have been a fan of his for a long time. He sailed with me on the Stars and Stripes in the last Americas Cup. He's won the biggest prize in yachting. A lot of people don't know what that is and that's the Star World Championships. After many years of competing against the top order of the Americas Cup and winning a lot of championships I think that its time in sailing that he got this well deserved victory and good on you Paul." PAUL CAYARD (EF LANGUAGE) "It's a special moment for sure. It's going around the world on a sail boat when your whole lilfe has been sailing, is a big deal. And then to win the race was extra special and I am sure it has not all sunk in yet and I know from having been in a lot of big races like Dennis said that it takes a certain amount of luck to do what we did on EF Language. We are happy and I guess I would like to congratulate the competitors. A race isn't worth winning unless the people you are racing against are really tough and very good. We have a full line up here of highly credentialled skippers and crews and support teams and that makes the victory worth winning. Thanks. Dennis is making a point that Star world champions do well in other activities. I know that my background really helped me in this - raise this offshore sailing more than my lack of experience hurt me. My background in two boat testing and sail development and just maximising the use of every minute I have at my disposal and my team's mentality being the same was the key factor for us to win. For me winning an offshore race like this really widens my career. I've been a buoy sailor, an Americas Cup sailor, an Olympics sailor, all my life for 30 years. Now I was very fortunate to win an offshore race and so, I think that when I look back on my career when I am a little older I will be very happy to have been so well rounded" LAWRIE SMITH (SILK CUT) "I think you will find that if we did half decent on the leg when we broke our mast then we would have come second. We broke our mast, that's what happened to us. The topmast backstay attachment to the top of the mast broke." DOING MORE ROUND THE WORLD RACES DENNIS CONNER - "I think that with Mel Pyatt and the Volvo people this is going to be a huge race and be a big factor in yachting so those of us that love sailing and love compting and make a decent living, then people will have to be a part of it because if you are not part of it it's a bit Like not being part of the Americas Cup and you miss a pay cheque, The media's out there and what can you do for me today that really matters. So this race will be a big race and for people that are involved in this race I think it will be hard for them to pass. I think Mel Pyatt has a good idea on how to do it so I am sure you will see a lot of these people here." GUNNAR KRANTZ - "I am 43 years old and 47 next time. Magnus is 49, Roger is 49, Pele Peterson was 55 when he competed a few legs. If the physical side is there it is not a problem. I would very much like to do the last Whitbread and the first Volvo. That would be nice, so why not." PAUL STANDBRIDGE - "I've done five Whitbreads and I have enjoyed them all in varying degrees but with a decreasing amount each time. I have worked very hard to win it and I haven't achieved that. The best that I did was with Lawrie last time on Intrum Justitia. So I am quite disappointed to leave the event without actually having won it but that's by the by. It's been a very good experience. In some way its left me behind. I have always looked on the Whitbread as an adventure, my main attraction. This race has gone past an adventure now - it's very professional, almost a one design event which perhaps I am not good enough to win. The next most exciting race for me around the world will be The Race in 120ft catamarans and that will be the race that I will perceive in the future for its adventure as much as its boat race. I might have the opportunity to sail with one of the guys up here today in that race and I look forward to it very much." ROY HEINER - "I had three goals starting to sail this Whitbread - one was to grow a beard, the second one was to see an iceberg and the third was to go 15 knots around Cape Horn and none of the three happened so I have got to do it again." KNUT FROSTAD - "I am the youngest skipper which presumably means that I should do it several times. I guess it depends on your memory - whether you have a long or a short memory because if you have short one you do it again and I guess as you get older your memory gets shorter. I haven't made up my mind buts it's a hard time and a lot of work but its worth it. So we'll see." GRANT DALTON - "If I do it again I will have done it more than anyone else. I wouldn't say I have finished with it. I certainly wouldn't want to do The Race which means prior to the race itself we'd do a circumnavigation so that would be two more circumnavigations before the next Volvo so that would be eight after the next Volvo - probably too much for anybody. But I will look at it. I am 40, nearly as old as Gunnar but never quite as old! One of the reasons is because I think all of us hear can say we've learnt a lot from Paul about the intensity of which they've sailed and the only motivation that would bring me back is that we could bring back so much more to the way we've sailed." REGARDING CONCERN FOR PEOPLE IN THE PAST BUT NOT FOR THE BOAT GRANT DALTON "When I did the Whitbread say with Peter Blake there was always this thing about seamanship, where if you are pounding too much upwind you slowed down a bit - if you were a little bit out of control with the spinnaker up you took it down. And probably we carried a little bit of that into the start of this race. But its down the torpedoes now. My eyes were opened when we were coming up the coast of Australia on that mad reach up from the bottom to Sydney and watching Knut, with his full sized code 4 spinnaker up, broaching time and time again with the rig just shaking around and knowing he had a damaged rig. And to me that just said, forget the boats just go for it and the boats will hang in and if they don't well… Seamanship's still there but if you let that drive the way you sail the boat you are jus going to get slaughtered every six hours by Lawrie, or Paul, or whatever." JOHN KOSTECKI(CHESSIE RACING) "10 points adrift of fourth and now all lost. Of course it doesn't feel good. But we got what we deserved. That may sound harsh but it's honest. The guys in front are great sailors, it was no fluke that they were there. There were lots of missed opportunities. It's a big campaign, lots of people and it takes lots of planning. The winner won this race before it was even started." "I'm very enthused to start working on another project. This time I'm going to be very involved." "This has been a great opportunity for me and George has allowed me to come and go as my schedule has allowed. This has allowed me to learn a tremendous amount about conditions, crew, sails everything. And I hope to take it forward." REGARDING HAVING SPECIALISTS ON DIFFERENT LEGS It worked on this leg. It was very tricky and you needed a lot of local knowledge . We've been talking to Derek [Clark] since March so it wasn't a new thing. I have sailed with him before so was able to manage and help him." REGARDING A PROTEST AGAINST TOSHIBA "We felt we had been fouled by Toshiba again. The last time we didn't put up a protest flag. It's not really my style to do it in these circumstances so I asked George (Collins, owner of Chessie Racing)and he said 'No, don't protest'. So it was Geroge's call." "George has been great but he's new to this game at this level. He learnt as he went along and made changes after the start but basically it was too late." CHRISTINE GUILLOU (EF EDUCATION) "It was a bad leg. We did not understand the currents in the ocean. We made a little mistake with the current at Ushant. And in this race it only takes one small mistake. We were in touch with the fleet yesterday but then it all slipped away. The problem was compounded by the team arriving in the Solent when the tide was flowing out at a maximum rate - four knots. We almost had to put our anchor down at one stage. We tried to keep going tacking back and forth but we had four knots of tide and 3 knots of breeze but on the final try we got some new wind."
Leg nine finish - 24th May 1998 | |||||||||
