Enterprise skipper in two minds over lead

Press, 19 December 1985, Page 52

Enterprise skipper in two minds over lead

PA Wellington N.Z.I. Enterprise’s fourday stint of high-speed sailing, which has propelled it to a commanding lead on the second leg of the Whitbread round-the-world yacht race, has the skipper, Digby Taylor, in two minds. “It’s either tremendously exciting or nerve-racking depending on how you look at it,” Taylor told his wife, Diane, by radio telephone yesterday. At last report, N.Z.I. Enterprise was leading the Whitbread fleet both on the water and on handicap and was 3804 miles from Auck-

land. Its lead over secondplaced Atlantic Privateer had been extended to 56 miles. Taylor said Enterprise’s best 24-hour run in recent days had been close to 340 miles: “And that with the wind only slightly aft of the beam. Dozens of times, we have been over 25 knots on this point of sailing,” he said. The high-speed sailing had, however, placed a strain on the yacht’s gear, especially spinnaker poles and halyards. . The kite halyard broke on Tuesday and went over the side, with the crew having

to brave temperatures of minus one degree Celsius while hauling it out of the water, Taylor said. The Belgian entry Rucanor Tristar was meanwhile causing some concern for race headquarters after she reported suffering several knockdowns in the southern seas. A spokesman for Portsmouth race headquarters said that the 58-footer skippered by Gustvaaf Verfluyf had apparently “shipped a lot of water, and is having problems with the rudder.”