Fleet's food for thought

With just one week's sailing out of four behind them, the Whitbread fleet en route for Cape Town will already be checking inventory and rationing food. The fleet was blasted out of the Solent last Sunday on a stiff easterly breeze in front of a gallery of some 5,000 spectator boats. But within 12 hours the boats were becalmed off the north-western tip of France waiting for a new breeze from the north.

Pre-race estimates that gave 30 days as the likely length of this leg are beginning to look somewhat optimistic and already there will be worries about running out of food. America's Challenge provisioned for 28 days, as did a number of others. "I'm pretty happy that we've got food for 33,'' Grant Dalton, the Merit Cup skipper, said yesterday.

And with the flukey winds has come an upset. Few will be surprised to see Brunel Sunergy, EF Education and Swedish Match more than 200 miles off the pace, but the fact that Toshiba is 124 miles behind the leaders, Kvaerner Innovation, Merit Cup and EF Language, is a surprise.

During the middle of last week, as the fleet approached the north-west tip of Portugal, they split into three. Kvaerner Innovation and Chessie Racing pushed out to the west, a group of three - EF Language, Merit Cup and Lawrie Smith's Silk Cut - chose the middle ground and Toshiba headed inshore to find a land breeze. Chris Dickson's roll of the dice went against him and Toshiba was forced to crawl along the shore in light airs while the two groups out to sea were back to reasonable speeds. He was soon 50 miles behind, then over 100 and since then there has been no way back.

Up at the front Kvaerner Innovation and EF Language battled for the lead for three days. Marcel van Trieste, Kvaerner's navigator, took a flyer early last week and it paid off. It brought Kvaerner up and into contact with Merit, EF and Silk Cut.

Right now, with a stiff northerly breeze settled in and the boats gunning along at 20 knots and above, opportunities for movement up and down the fleet are massively diminished. This will please the breakaway group that includes Merit Cup, who managed to slip past EF Language into second place last night, and Silk Cut in fourth, around 50 miles behind the leaders.

WHITBREAD ROUND THE WORLD RACE: 1 Innovation Kvaerner 5945.5 miles to finish; 2 Merit Cup 5957.7, 12.2 miles behind leader; 3 EF Language, 5960.2, 14.7; 4 Silk Cut 5966.79, 51.29; 5 Chessie Racing 6000.39, 54.9; 6 Toshiba 6070.1, 124.6; 7 Swedish Match 6173.89, 228.39; 8 America's Challenge 6176.1, 230.6; 9 Brunel Sunergy 6235.39, 290.39; 10 EF Education 6267.6, 322.1.