UFO Info Week-End

No longer do they harbour such dreams

No longer do they harbour such dreams.”illbruck sailed a near faultless leg,” said Neal McDonald, the skipper of the improving Assa Abloy, now illbruck’s only serious contender for the trophy. That form, coupled with the speed advantage that illbruck seemed to enjoy these last two weeks, should be enough to see them home.But while the illbruck crew made it look easy as they slipped into the lead in the early stages of the leg and stretched away to notch up an outright monohull 24-hour speed record (484 miles in 24 hours or an average of over 20 knots), all was not well on board. A bout of gastric poisoning severely debilitated the crew to the point where at one stage just one person emerged from below to begin a three-person watch.”Four of us have been throwing up violently over the last 48 hours,” said Kostecki. “I’m not sure if it was food poisoning or a bug we picked up in Baltimore before we left.”While Neal McDonald has been spending the last week trying to work out how to sail around illbruck and into a challenging position, his wife Lisa has been playing a logistical game trying to work out how to get Amer Sports Too back onto the ocean race track. Amer Too lost its mast off the coast of Newfoundland more than a week ago. The boat was nursed back to Halifax in Canada and is now on a ship bound for Liverpool.Lisa McDonald’s race against time will see her and her crew meet the boat at Liverpool docks on Tuesday and truck the 60-foot craft to Gosport where a new mast will be fitted. While the other crews will be resting and fine tuning in La Rochelle, the all-women team will be rushing to step the new mast in time to sail across to France for the re-start on 25 May.

Though offers of help in the form of sails and spares have come from across the fleet, time is likely to be the major enemy.If the women’s team have a battle on their hands simply to be ready to play any further part in this race over the next month, others have more philosophical difficulties.At the back Knut Frostad has set the sights of the lacklustre dJuice Dragons team on a podium finish that has so far eluded them. Not far ahead Gunnar Krantz will be dreaming of winning a leg to save Swedish face on Team SEB. For Tyco, News Corp and even Amer Sports One, a place on the podium will now be the main priority. While Assa Abloy, eight points behind illbruck, can still call themselves contenders, the reality is that they need to win both remaining legs with illbruck in fifth both times for the German boat to be toppled.It is not an impossible prospect and in sailing, as Lisa McDonald can testify, the worst can happen at the oddest moment. But it would be a cruel twist of fate that denied Kostecki a race win that will stand at the pinnacle of four years’ work. The team that started first, turned over the most stones and covered the most ground now look likely to prevail. When it happens it will have been a long time coming but no one will say it was not deserved.VOLVO OCEAN RACE Seventh stage (Annapolis to La Rochelle): 1 illbruck Challenge 10 days 20hrs 44min 30sec, 8pts; 2 Assa Abloy +1hr 55min, 7; 3 Team Tyco +3hrs 35min, 6; 4 Team SEB +5hrs 9min, 5; 5 Amer Sports One +5hrs 12min, 4; 6 Team News Corp +5hrs 48min, 3; 7 djuice +11hrs 25min, 2; 8 Amer Sports Too, ret.Overall standings: 1 illbruck (J Kostecki) 49pts; 2 Assa Abloy (N McDonald) 41; 3 Amer Sports One (G Dalton) 36; 4 News Corp (J Fanstone) 34; 5 Tyco (K Shoebridge) 33; 6 SEB (G Krantz) 26; 7 djuice (K Frostad) 23; 8 Amer Sports Too (L McDonald) 10.Eighth leg: La Rochelle to G?org (1,075 nm) 25 May Final leg: G?org to Kiel (250 nm) 8 June.

West Indies’ fast bowlers hit back here yesterday to reduce India to 272 for 6 in the morning session of the second day of the Fourth Test. At lunch, VVS Laxman, India’s last specialist batsman, was at the crease on 17, along with wicketkeeper Ajay Ratra, unbeaten on 12. He suffered his third duck from his last four Test innings when out first ball.West Indies won the third Test at Barbados to level the five-match series at 1-1.. Chaminda Vaas is Sri Lanka’s other bowler. That is to say, he is not Muttiah Muralitharan, but batsmen had better watch out anyway.

In the understandable rush to praise the great spinner and run down his team’s chances without him this summer, there is a temptation to overlook anybody else in the side who turns their arm over

Chaminda Vaas is Sri Lanka’s other bowler. They should be on their guard, not only thinking on their feet but moving them adeptly too.Otherwise, the left-arm swing bowler will have them pinned to the crease and on the way back long, long before you can say Warnakulasuriya Patabendige Ushantha Joseph Chaminda Vaas.For sure, the man with the most initials in the game will struggle to contain Nasser Hussain’s team alone but his late movement allied to a pace sufficient to keep the batsman honest has assumed lethal proportions lately. In the space of a few days last winter he took 14 wickets in a Test match, and four days later had a return of 8 for 19, the best figures in a one-day international. Sometime during the First Test match at Lord’s he should collect the four wickets he needs to become the first Sri Lanka fast bowler to reach 200 in Tests. Do not entirely rule out the first morning.Vaas and Murali have become one of the most potent combinations in the game’s history. Their unlikely partnership and some resplendent top-order batting has been responsible for Sri Lanka’s nine consecutive Test victories. The edge that the faster, junior partner will gain by operating in English conditions suggests that he will reach a career peak this summer.