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As movistar suspected, the fairing between the keel and the hull had broken off and this is how the water leaked into the boat. Once the boat was out of the water in Ushuaia, Argentina, the team was able to see that there was also some light damage to the rudder and the hull, which was almost certainly caused by the fairing breaking off. The team has carried out repairs which will get them to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where they will carryout a more rigorous investigation and a repair will be done to bring the boat back up to optimum condition for the next leg of the course.

'We will be sailing with the keel halfway so as not to exert too much pressure around the area until we are able to perform more in-depth repairs,' explained skipper Bouwe BEKKING (NED). 'Obviously, in these kinds of conditions, our speed will be a lot slower than the rest of the fleet, but we should be in Rio by 13 March,' he added.

Movistar Drop Protests

The race office was also informed that movistar has withdrawn both protests against Sebastien JOSSE's (FRA) ABN AMRO TWO and Paul CAYARD's (USA) Pirates of the Caribbean, which were submitted ashore during the stopover in Wellington, New Zealand and one after the re-start in Wellington.

For the rest of the fleet racing towards Rio de Janeiro with just over 1,000 nautical miles to run, it has been another 24 hours of smooth sailing. The dreaded slow passage through the ridge of high pressure yesterday did not materialise and the fleet managed to keep moving. The whole fleet tacked late last night, but the order remains unchanged as they head towards the coast, 700 miles to their west. Mike SANDERSON's (NZL) ABN AMRO ONE continues to sail consistently faster than the chasing pack and has extended her lead to 45 miles, from ABN AMRO TWO in second place.

DTF: Distance To Finish
DTL: Distance To Leader
DTLC: Distance To Leader Change; the difference between the distance from the boat to the leader taken at the time of the last six hour poll, and the distance from the boat to the leader at the previous poll
CMG: Course Made Good; the average course steered over the period of the past six hours up to the time of the last poll
SMG: Speed Made Good
VMG: Velocity Made Good; the average velocity of the boat towards the finish over the entire leg
ETA: Estimated Time of Arrival

Overall Leaderboard
(Up to and including Leg Four Scoring Gate - not yet ratified)

For a complete list of all the news about the Volvo Ocean Race 2005-2006 CLICK HERE.