Yachting-Live

Volvo Ocean Race
* Both Ericsson boats have endured a bruising encounter with the North Sea during their qualifying run.

Ericsson 3 and Ericsson 4 ran into 40 knots within 24 hours of a relatively gentle departure from Sweden on their round trip to the team training base in Lanzarote.

Anders Lewander, skipper of Ericsson 3, reported that they had engaged in some close racing with their sister ship after leaving Nynashamn and made their way through the narrow channel between Denmark and Sweden.

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The Comeback Trail Continues For Mean Machine

Palma de Mallorca, Spain: Mean Machine emerged from a classic sea breeze day of three good races on the Bay of Palma to lead the 14th Regatta Breitling by seven clear points from Matador.

Peter de Ridder’s team were on top of their game when they chased Bribon across the finish line of the first race before going on to win the second race by a comfortable margin, but once again it was their ability to rescue a solid single digit result from the depths of the fleet early in Race 6 of the regatta which also highlights their class in this fleet.

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The Other Face Of Qingdao

Despite long-held predictions of almost guaranteed light winds at the Olympic regatta, the waters off Qingdao have another face. After a prolonged period of fog and very light winds, these photos show a completely different side to the Olympic venue, with the 2004 Finn silver medalist Rafael Trujillo (ESP) training this week in winds of 22-25 knots.

His coach, Michele Marchesini (ITA), who competed against Trujillo in the 2004 Olympics writes from Qingdao, “In the last two days the wind has broken through in Qingdao. Yesterday we experienced 20 knot winds, today it was up to 22-25. In the fresh winds, some nice waves quickly build up, especially when the wind is blowing against the tidal flow.”

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