Sailing: The voyage through hell on water takes its toll

To face physical danger 24 hours a day in the cold and wet while badly fed and dehydrated demands special courage and endurance

You know you are in a territory of extreme endurance sport that is alien to most athletes when Ross Field says: "It was a very, very hard leg, both mentally and physically. It was brutal." The navigator of News Corp is the senior side of 50, has raced through the Southern Ocean many times before, has the reputation of being harder than nails, and usually demonstrates all the softness and sympathy of a cobra just before it strikes.

For Field even to admit that the pressures of the Volvo Ocean Race were taking their toll was an indication of how severe life can be. There is no other endurance activity like racing a grand prix yacht through some of the most severe conditions on the planet. At the end of a protracted first leg from Southampton to Cape Town there were teams of doctors to meet every yacht, worried about dehydration and weight loss. The British navigator of the Bermudan-based Tyco, Steve Hayles, had lost 14kg.

When the fleet arrived on Tuesday at the end of the second leg in Sydney, Field was nursing two cracked ribs, and had been only able to operate thanks to painkillers. Keith Kilpatrick, of Amer Sports One, had been lifted off at Eclipse Island, off south-west Australia, because of a severely blocked intestine. And his skipper, Grant Dalton, was taken off on a stretcher when he docked, his ribs and back bruised by a heavy fall 24 hours before the finish.

There were numerous other reports of rib and shoulder damage. Hayles' counterpart on djuice, Jean-Yves Bernot, emerged from below looking like a character from a horror movie – death warmed up was a generous description of his haggard look.

What is this all about? There is no other game like it on earth. Only some military training exercises can compare with what ocean racing demands of the body. And, usually, they take place in a stable environment.

Some athletes put in a punishing amount of work many days a week. The sailors are racing 24 hours a day for up to 30 consecutive days. The Tour de France cyclists race day after day, but sleep in a bed night after night with a drip to restore their systems. If you can sleep on a round-the-word racer it is because you are very, very tired.

The boat is bucking and lurching. It is noisy. You are damp, possibly cold, wedged into a primitive bunk and your muscles are working all the time to counter the motion of the boat.

Eating and drinking is little more than a chore. The food is freeze-dried and a single-burner stove heats the water which is added to the powdered porridge. In the Southern Ocean the stove is inefficient and it takes a long time to heat the water. Corners can be cut and the food served in a hurry.

That can leave the stomach to do more work than it wants, finishing off the rehydration process. Crews eat less than they should because spooning the fuel in is no fun. The comfort and social value of eating is entirely absent.

They also drink less than they should. If you drink more you urinate more and that is a major operation. Taking off oilskins, mid-layer and thermals takes a long time. The loo is tucked away forward and trying to use it without being bounced between the deck head and the cabin sole is a tricky business.

So they drink less, eat less, dehydrate more and feel worse for it all at a time when the body needs perhaps twice the normal calorie intake to race 64 feet of overpowered yacht through freezing temperatures, gale force winds and seas where the top of a wave can be 80 feet above the trough ahead of it.

The physical stress is matched by the mental tension. The helmsmen ride a wall of death, pushing the boats as fast as they can, always aware that a computer is constantly measuring their performance and that every six hours a report is sent out by race headquarters comparing their performance with the opposition. A wipe-out can cost miles. It can also cost injury to a crew who can be swept bodily along the deck by walls of water or thrown from one side of the cabin below to another.

In Cape Town, Timo Malinen, a chiropractor and medical coordinator for a Volvo team that includes five doctors and a Plymouth hospital, was measuring muscle wastage and fatigue. His work is part of a start to the collection of data rather than anecdotes on how the body of an ocean racing sailor functions.

In Sydney he has seen much more trauma, in the form of muscle and bone bruising, the wrenching of joints such as the shoulders, and some frostbite, mainly to the hands. There is always the problem of permanent salt water soaking the skin. There is also ulcerous corrosion to the digestive system brought on by stress.

"The level at which the game is being played is a huge leap over even the last time," says Dalton, still grey and in obvious pain. "It is just a tough race, so, if you are not tough, you won't make it."

The next leg of the Volvo Ocean Race, staring on Boxing Day includes the Sydney to Hobart, which has claimed many lives. The fourth leg takes the fleet round Cape Horn. More than ever, the medics will be watching anxiously.