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Iker Martínez: “I must thank the Spanish Navy and Vice Admiral Jaime Rodriguez-Toubes, the delegate for sailing, as well as the Chilean and Argentine authorities for the help and assistance they're giving us”

“Telefónica” has made a shift in strategy and instead of stopping of to carry out the forecasted repairs at Ushuaia (Argentina) the boat will stop at Cape Horn itself, more specifically at Maxwell Cove, a small and very well protected bay within the group of Wollaston islands, right at the heart of the Cape Horn national park (Chile).

Double-Olympic medallist and skipper Iker Martínez made the announcement this afternoon: “We have decided to make a quick stop at Cape Horn to reinforce the damaged section of the hull and to get back in the race as quickly as we can. If all goes well, we'll try to carry out the repairs without stopping off on land to avoid the stretch up to Ushuaia, which would mean another 100 extra miles. Horacio [Team Telefónica's technical director] is sailing from Port Williams now in a 50-foot steel sailboat which will bring them to the cape. We'll meet there to take shelter so that we can make the reinforcements to the area of the bow that's been affected”.

“The area around Cape Horn is a labyrinth of islands and this time they'll be help us to get some shelter so that we can work more effectively on the boat, with no movement and with the boat dry”, added the Basque skipper.

So the Spanish baot will avoid a trip to Ushuaia and will aim to stop only for the minimum period set out by the race rules, which is to say, 12 hours: “The rules state that if you stop it must be for a minimum period of 12 hours, so we'll try to get it all done within that time frame”, explained Iker Marínez. “First we'll check if the outside of the hull is still intact. If it is, which I hope it is, we'll position ourselves so we're shielded, just behind the island of Cape Horn, to be able to work comfortably. The rules also state that if you pay the 12 hour penalty you are entitled to external assistance, so our technical director Horacio and the shore crew will be giving us a hand with repairs”.

Thanks for the Spanish Navy and the Chilean and Argentine authorities

To be precise, the group of shore crewmembers are heading for Maxwell Cove with the equipment needed to carry out repairs and are making their way on the water, just like their fellow team mates. They are on a 50-foot boat having set sail from Port Williams, as the ESP-1 skipper told us.

“We've come sailing from New Zealand, the shore crew has left Argentina and we're meeting in Chilean waters, so if we'd had to take the time to do all of the paperwork we'd have to spend a lot longer than we'd planned at Cape Horn”, said Martínez.

The head of the Spanish crew also wanted to “thank the Chilean and Argentine authorities for their help and assistance, as well as the Spanish Navy and Vice Admiral Jaime Rodriguez-Toubes, the Spanish Navy sailing delegate”.

The two frontrunners 15-18 hours away

This bit of breaking news has added even more excitement to this regatta. As Iker Martínez wrote this email, “Groupama” and “Puma”, first and second on the fleet had just rounded Cape Horn although in the most recent report the boats were some 300 miles from the Spanish boat, so 15 to 18 hours away.

“Once we've finished the repairs we'll be aiming to get back to full speed. “Puma” and “Groupama” may not push forward so much over the next few hours but their lead might be just too much for us to catch them before we get to Itajaí”, said Iker.

However, anything's possible and the Basque skipper has opened up an interesting question mark: “Even though the gap seems insurmountable, the climb up to Brazil has some tricky points and we are likely to come across a complicated high that might shake things up, and that's given us a bit of hope that they may be stopped in their tracks ahead and we could catch up with them. You can always dream that something good might happen, right?”