Sailing: Grael's quest in deep waters

"Once more unto the breach" in Portuguese, or any other language, immediately conjures up images of blood and sinew, but the decision by Torben Grael, the skipper of Brasil 1, to restart the second leg of the Volvo Race from Cape Town to Melbourne speaks volumes about obsessive determination.

The five-time Olympic medallist from Sao Paulo, having applied a monster sticking plaster to a cracked deck, plans to leave Port Elizabeth on Tuesday. Although he will be 2,000 miles behind the rest of the fleet on the 6,100-mile leg, there are two scoring stages on the way, and Brasil 1 was lying second overall after the first leg. Grael's determination is understandable.

Neal McDonald, the British skipper of Ericsson, is taking a different approach after turning back with keel problems. He will ship Ericsson to Melbourne to carry out proper repairs and be ready for the third leg. The two men had quite different problems, but Grael's relish for chasing the five other yachts storming their way through the Southern Ocean deserves a cheer.

This leg is daunting enough anyway: crews horribly exposed, soaked by tonnes of water rushing over the deck. Their task is to control a most fearsome new breed of ocean racer, but they have to be fearful only of fear. Emotions swing between the will to win and that to live.

The new organisers of the Volvo Ocean Race, inheritors of the Whitbread Race traditions, know they have unleashed a beast even more powerful than they originally imagined. A slightly late announcement of the design to replace what had become the near-bulletproof Volvo 60s, combined with the usual difficulty of raising sponsorship, meant that a fleet of only seven could be scraped together for the race - and one of them was still bolting on bits 24 hours before the first leg.

Were they fully ready to race at speeds 40 per cent faster than ever before? Probably not. Would sailing's equivalent of the Civil Aviation Authority, if it existed, have given the new technology a certificate of seaworthiness? Almost certainly not. These spectacular new boats have a cloud of sail horsepower, a light hull and a turbocharger of a keel. Four metres deep and with a five-tonne lead bulb at the bottom, the keel can be swung from side to side, which improves stability hugely. That is, if the hydraulic ram systems can take the strain. They are not yet proved.

Only five boats made it through the first, rough night of the opening leg, with the Spanish pre-race favourite movistar and the Disney-backed Pirates of the Caribbean retiring. Both were shipped to Cape Town, where there was a cacophony of noise from the boatyards as the boats were frantically beefed up. The Pirates now lie equal second, with ABN Amro 2, and movistar fourth. ABN 1 is the clear leader.

Ericsson and Brasil 1's demise within 48 hours of the start of the second leg led to some calls for the race to be abandoned to give the new boats time to be developed. Try telling that to the race leaders.

How many more will drop out? The Australian boat is in major financial strife. There are 4,500 more miles of this Southern Ocean leg to go and another one, from Wellington round Cape Horn and up to Rio, to come. But boats are expendable. It is the people who are not.