Eight boats competing in the Volvo Ocean Race will be arriving
in Singapore in less than 10 hours as they sprint for the finishing
line in the Singapore leg of the world tour.
The finishing line is just across the Malaysian border at the
western end of the island.
The race has been a very close one so far, with the latest
updates showing four boats separated by just two nautical miles or
about 1.8 kilometres.
Team Erisson 4 from Sweden is currently leading the pack in the
overall standing.
Saifulbahri Ismail with more :
11 ports.
8 teams.
1 race.
The Volvo Occean Race described as the equivalent of the Formula
One race in the sport of professional yachting will be sailing into
Singapore shores.
This is the first time in the race's more than 40 years history
that the boats will be stopping over here.
In Singapore, the boats will undergo a complete overhaul to
prepare them for the next leg begining January the 18th.
The boats have been battling fierce storms, total isolation and
icebergs since the fleet left the port of Alicante, in Spain in
October.
But according to Marcus Hutchinson, communications director for
the race, they're facing a different kind of risk in this region
:
"The challenges are obviously a huge amount of shipping, there's
an awful lot more debris in the water, both from washouts from
rivers, from monsoons and things like that, but also rubbish,
litters and containers, regrettably, the sea is not as clean as we
would like them to be. There's also the risk of collision with
small unlit fishing boats of which there are huge amounts in these
parts of the world."
Another challenge the teams went through is the threat of sea
piracy.
This year alone there were more than 120 attacks by Somali
pirates on shipping in the Gulf of Aden and the Indian Ocean.
Mr Hutchinson explains how they have been coping with this
threat :
"So the organisation has made various arrangements in terms of
briefing the crews and the maritime organisations as to what to
expect. It has also re-routed the course as much as possible away
from the hot areas where there's high risk areas of piracy and more
importantly we monitor the fleet's position every 15 minutes. We
have very accurate positions of all of the boats, we know exactly
where they are."
While in Singapore, organisers have prepared a Race Festival
begining on the 8th of next month at ONE degree 15 Marina Club,
Sentosa.
During the festival, the public can witness an in-port race
among all the teams along the waters of East Coast.
The Volvo Ocean race will finish in St Petersburg, Russia in
late June next year.
--938Live