Monday 03 November 2008 10:14 GMT

By Riath Al-Samarrai

Ian Walker insisted he was happy with Green Dragon’s fourth place finish despite the early indications that they may have been higher up the order.

His crew were seemingly on course for a stunning result when Ian Moore’s brilliant navigational call sent them through the Doldrums in pole position and gave Green Dragon the head-start needed to claim maximum points at the Fernando de Noronha’s scoring gate.

However, a series of mishaps including two ripped sails, a collision with a submerged object and a spate of injuries in the past four days saw the team cruise home in fourth rather than push Ericsson 3 for third into Cape Town.

“I feel like I’ve sailed a whole race, not a leg,” said debutant Walker. “It was really tough out there, but we have got to be pleased with what we have achieved. If we hadn’t done our 2,000-mile qualifier in rough conditions, I do not think we would have made it to Cape Town. We needed that experience.

“We have had a whole load of damage to people and the boat and to come through in fourth is great. You have to think about where we have come from and the (limited) time we had to put it together and where that has cost us in terms of weight in the bulb: half a tonne lighter than Ericsson 4. You can’t expect to jump in and take on these guys who have been building for so long.”In with select company

That said, his team proved more than a match for their better prepared rivals in the early stages of the race.

“We were in the top three heading down to the South Atlantic,” said Damian Foxall. “We were going great. We dropped off a little early off that front but subsequently that collision slowed us a lot. We lost a spot for it.”

Indeed, it is the collision which Walker blames for the three-hour margin between his yacht and Ericsson 3.

“I spent half my time down below watching the data,” Walker said. “For the first 24 hours (after the collision) we were about 10% down and then we found a way of making things slightly better and we were about 8% down on performance. In real terms, we are giving away 50 or 60 miles a day in those conditions. It cost us about 12 hours.”

The shore crew will now get to work assessing whether the keel, which bore the brunt of the impact, has sustained serious damage. “I hope not,” said Walker. “This stopover is too short for big problems.”

Watch captain Neal McDonald added: “We don’t think there is any structural damage but there is definitely something amiss under the water.”

Some work will also be needed on the bow. Walker explained: “We had a lot of big nose dives, a bit of damage. The spinnaker ripped the pulpit off the bow. We kept going and we were just about through that when we hit whatever we hit. A bad day.”

Experience counts

The leg was Walker’s first taste of this event, but he was relieved to have experienced campaigners Foxall and McDonald as his watch captains. “I learnt a lot from them,” he said. “They are great to have onboard.”

He also learnt a lot about his boat. “When the wind settles down on a reach you can see the Ericssons and PUMA taking miles out sked after sked,” he said. “We are not too bad running downwind which a lot of this leg was.”

McDonald was impressed by the performance of the boat but conceded that it will be difficult to regularly get the better of Ericsson 4. “They have had so much time to prepare that they have the jump on most of us.

“We can push harder for sure, but we need to know more about the boat and each other. We didn’t go full throttle, but I doubt anyone did because you would break the boat. We can get a lot more out of our programme. It’s a big ask (to catch Ericsson 4); they have a long term approach, spent a lot of money, have great guys involved. They are well up the ladder. The tackle them is a big ask but we will keep on trying.”

He also refuted the early black-and-white suggestion that Ericsson are quick in heavy air and slow in the light breezes.

“We have a long way to go before know about what boats can do what. They looked fine in the in-port race. We saw in the in-port race that the Telefonica boats are slippery in the light, and they are the only boats that seem to stand out as being at an end of the spectrum, but I think it is too early to make a judgement.

“Us? We are further down the learning curve than most. I suspect we and everyone else will be learning at the end of the race. We can get better and I expect us to be competitive.”