Whitbread captains seek early advantage

The start of the Whitbread Round the World Race from Cowes on the Isle of Wight began with an attack from all 10 skippers, surrounded by a vast armada of spectator craft of all shapes and sizes. As the gun boomed out across the Solent, the 10 boats were abreast and only feet from being over the line early.

Already the spectator boats had cut the green water with broad swaths of white and the 20 knot south-easterly breeze was strong enough not only to whip up a few white caps but also to send the boats charging westwards towards Yarmouth and Hurst Narrows at a goodly clip. With masthead asymmetric spinnakers set, they were topping 15 to 16 knots at times and were out past Hurst Castle in just under an hour.

It was not surprising that at the island end of the line were two of the world's best short course racing skippers, Paul Cayard in EF Language and Chris Dickson with Toshiba. Cayard just beat Dickson to the punch and led away, the most windward of all the boats. A smile broke out on Cayard's face for the first time in a week - the pressures of replacing an absconding navigator at the eleventh hour have turned the American skipper unusually taciturn.

The 300 square metre yellow spinnaker of EF Language was filling as she crossed the line and a similarly sized white one was up and drawing immediately on Toshiba. Had this happened aboard Lawrie Smith's Silk Cut, attempting a leeward end start, he might have smiled as well, but as Gordon Maguire drove the boat unerringly towards the line, a foulup aloft prevented the huge sail from breaking out of its "sock". The zipped nylon tube failed to open and one boat after another rolled over Silk Cut to windward. Smith was seen on the foredeck, helping to sort out the problem, but by the time the shark's head logoed sail was drawing, Silk Cut was last of the 10 boats. His was but a minor problem compared with that of Knut Frostad with Innovation Kvaerner.

Frostad had to take drastic action to avoid a spectator boat and the head of the spinnaker blew out. Before a new one could be hoisted, Kvaerner was back of the pack. Dickson had slightly better luck as Toshiba was undamaged after a brush with a press launch.

Cayard stretched his lead to 400 yards as he went through the Narrows with Grant Dalton, winner of the Maxi class last time, in second place after starting alongside Silk Cut. Toshiba was third, but by the time three hours had passed and the fleet was off St Alban's Head, Dickson had taken Toshiba into the lead.

They were all still well bunched and hardly a length separated Dickson and Cayard with Dalton close behind. Smith, by then, had shaken off the attentions of the back markers and had Silk Cut in fourth place as they began to point towards Ushant on this 7,350 mile leg to Cape Town.

Guardian Service

Yachting's gold riband race got off to a dream start in perfect conditions today as the seventh and final Whitbread Round the World Race left the Solent.

From the starting line every one of the 10 identical boats was battling for the slightest advantage as the crews prepared to keep up the intense pressure on the 31,600 miles course.

With 20 knots of wind blowing down the course conditions were ideal for the fleet to use their brightly coloured spinnakers or asymmetric gennaker sails to build speeds up to 15 knots and surf the waves.

Thousands of people lined vantage points along the Solent as much as 20 deep and hundreds of yachts, motor launches and chartered ferry boats crowded the sea lanes off the Royal Yacht Squadron at Cowes on the Isle of Wight.

At exactly 2pm the Duke of York fired the great cannon which unleashed the cream of the world's sailors and their 60ft yachts on the first stage of their journey to Cape Town.