In this Issue:
Whitbread- EF Language Finishes Domination of Leg 5
St. Pete NOOD- NOOD # 1 is in the Books
Gold Race- Heading north to 'Frisco
Royal Sun Alliance- To the Southern Ocean ?

Whitbread
    EF Language is in port awaiting the rest of the fleet. She dominated Leg 5 with a 500+ mile margin of victory. This makes her the no doubt favorite for the rest of the race.

    Why did EF Language have such an easy time of it? Skipper Paul Cayard says his team learned a lot from the last Southern Ocean Leg (#2). What they learned is: boat control. Cayard summed up the boat management they employed this way "On Leg 5 we found ourselves flying along in 35 knots of wind sitting there at night on the back of the boat chatting about the 1992 America's Cup, relaxed and completely at ease, sailing with a storm chute up hauling down wind during a moonless night. That was
such a contrast with the Leg 2 horror show it really illustrated how far we had come."

    All the other boats are still on the course. As is always the case with the Whitbread the racing and situations are not dull. Dutch boat BrunelSunergy has put herself in 2nd place by the daring maneuver of going east of the Falkland Islands. While according
to Cayard this was the obvious move no other boats took advantage of this. Brunel is
253 miles from the finish. In 3rd place is Chessie Racing. They made a 59 minute pit stop at Ushuaia for spare motor parts and sailed on. They are 265 miles from the finish. As they sail to the finish they see cracks in their rig. Swedish Match is next 340 miles from the barn. They have a broken watermaker and extremely limited supplies of water. The crew admits to the symptoms of dehydration. The next two boats are Merit Cup and Toshiba, and then Innovation Kaverner. The final two boats are Silk Cut, motor sailing from Ushuaia with her broken rig, and EF Education also with
broken rig. Both of these boats are expected to put in new rigs and be ready for Leg 6.

    As always follow the daily drama of the Whitbread at http://www.whitbread.org

St. Pete Nood
    The first of Sailing World's GMC Yukon NOOD regattas is in the books. The 148 boats encountered a variety of conditions from 10-15 knots ideal conditions to drifting conditions.

    As for boats from the Great Lakes in attendance Gratiot Beach took 5th in the
Henderson 30 class. In the J/22 fleet 2 boats from Charlevoix MI made the trek. Hussy
finished 6th, while H.S. Moisture Missle was 17th in this tough and large class.

    In the J/29 class Jay Mcardle's Fast Lane finished 3rd. The S2 7.9 class had a strong Great Lakes contingent. BERNOULLI from Linden MI was the winning 7.9, while Slapshot from Grosse Ilse finished 4th.

    The Sonar one design class decided its midwinter championships at St. Pete. The class had several boats from Wisconsin showing good form, Adios from Williams Bay finished 5th while Woody from Lake Geneva was 8th in this large class.

    The next in the NOOD regatta series is March 20-22 in San Diego. The NOOD series makes its Great Lakes swing soon. May 29-31 is the Detroit NOOD, while June 19-21 is the Chicago NOOD.

Gold Race
    The 3 boat fleet is well around Cape Horn and heading north towards the finish in San Francisco. Aquitaine Innovations is still in the lead, with PRB 2nd 337 miles back and Geodis still in last 545 miles away from the leader.

    Currently PRB which is positioned to the east of Aquitaine Innovations has about 1 knot of boat speed advantage and is shortening the gap. Geodis had a problem with her twin rudders. The starboard rudder sustained about a 2MM nick which disrupted the waterflow around the foil. It is now fixed.

    The fleet will again approach the Doldrums. Often this is an area where the winds get fluky and the deck can be reshuffled. Certainly the two boats behind are hoping to profit from the doldrums.

    To keep up with the Gold Race fleet go to the Around Alone website at www.aroundalone.com

Royal&Sun Alliance- Jules Verne Update
    As the 92 foot catamaran starts her 4th week at sea she is in Southern Ocean territory, or is she? The strictly scientific definition of the Southern Ocean is that it begins at 55 degrees south latitude. The sailors definition is that it starts around 40 degrees south, and even better if you spot an albatross. Well, the cat and crew
are currently at 44 degrees south and have seen albatrosses. Yesterday they had a 24 hour run of 456 miles @ 19.0 knots, welcome to the Southern Ocean indeed!

    In our weekly look at Royal&Sun Alliance vs. current record holder French trimaran Sport Elec we see that RSA is behind the record pace. At this point Sport Elec was both farther east and farther south. However, with more 456 mile days this could change!

    To follow this record attempt visit www.rsachallenge.com