Neal McDonald, (UK), skipper of the sixth-placed Swedish yacht Ericsson, arrived in Wellington Harbour under power, having decided to haul the boat out of the water and make her ready for the next southern ocean leg. By suspending from leg three at 0608 GMT, before finishing, Ericsson is able to undertake repairs and other operations that might have otherwise incurred a two hour penalty for outside assistance at this pit stop.

“The rules are very clear and you are allowed to suspend racing,” explained McDonald when the boat reached the dockside. “It is only something you would do if you were coming last. It is an opportunity to use some extra help and to get everything checked and get out there on Sunday in the best form we can. If we had caught ABN AMRO TWO we probably would not have made this decision but chosen to take a penalty at the start of the next leg.”

Earlier this morning, at 05:12:30 Brasil 1 (Torben Grael/BRA) became the fourth boat to finish, missing a podium position by a little over an hour.

Knut Frostad (NOR) said: “We are disappointed with our result, but at least the boat is in one piece and we don’t have to fix it.

“We are still learning about the boat as we haven’t done the same amount of miles as some of the other teams. We have been able to race the boat hard and that has been good. We now have to concentrate on being first into Rio as that is really important to us.”

The final boat to finish leg three, just under an hour after Brasil 1 at 06:03:58, was the second Dutch boat, ABN AMRO TWO (Sebastien Josse/FRA), which has done so well to date. Navigator Simon Fisher commented:

“We are really disappointed with out results. We didn’t have the best start and it spiralled from there as we ripped the mainsail, we had a power outage and then we damaged a crew member. We did catch up with Pirates but then we fell out the back and the rich got richer.

“On the whole we are lucky that we got off as lightly as we did. We have an achievable work list and we will hopefully be on the start line on time.”

Leg four from Wellington to Rio de Janeiro will start on Sunday February 19.

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