ALICANTE, SPAIN // A radio call came from the Mediterranean Sea yesterday at the uh-oh hour of 2.16am, only it entailed no despair.
The race control staff at the Alicante shoreside fielded it from Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing, then confirmed that Azzam had re-entered the Volvo Ocean Race at the spot where it suspended racing four nights prior when a meaty wave threw it down into a shocking double-breakage of the mast.
"Just like falling off a horse, it takes time to regain your confidence," the skipper Ian Walker wrote from sea, "but you simply have to get back on it as soon as you can."
For the 11-man crew, "getting back on" came roughly 103 hours after the unthinkable left everyone gutted. It meant a rapid eight hours after edging from the Alicante base camp toward the sunset at 5.45pm here on Wednesday, with the 6ft 4ins water hero Wade Morgan working partway up the newly installed back-up mast. And it came during a night when the exhausted shore crew, still in Alicante after all these days, cautiously hoped that Azzam would navigate the 6,500-nautical-mile route to Cape Town, South Africa, even as new-found trouble could have forced a Leg 1 retirement and a demoralising shipping.
That fate befell Team Sanya, who announced they would transfer their stricken boat by truck from the Spanish coastal town of Motril to the commercial port at Gibraltar, where a ship will haul her to Cape Town for repairs. With Team Sanya retired from Leg 1 with a garish gash in the hull, Abu Dhabi and Team Sanya had spent four days lodged at the table base with no numbers to report and with the violent seas of the first night doling the Team Sanya bowman Andy Meiklejohn a broken ankle that will cost him 12 sailing weeks.
With Abu Dhabi citing their relative luck, the race control update at 1.15am yesterday showed the French entry Groupama 4 fattening their lead through a contrarian strategy of sliding east of the Canary Islands and hugging the African west coast. Trailing were three boats mining the traditional lurch out into the Atlantic Ocean for stouter winds, with the Spanish entry Telefonica 139.9 nautical miles behind, the American Puma Mar Mostro 146.6 behind, and the Spanish/New Zealand combination Camper 235.6 behind.
From there, the chart and map showed Abu Dhabi 855 miles behind and hugging the Spanish coast en route to the ocean via the Strait of Gibraltar. Azzam moved at 9.3 knots - slower, of course, than the ocean-merry rivals curling toward the desired downwind sailing.
While the westward three had battled chop, the Mar Mostro media crew member Amory Ross wrote on Wednesday: "We've gone over 24 hours without tacking, and I cannot begin to tell you how nice that's been. Without a doubt, going in a straight line on these boats makes life exponentially easier. You're in the same bunk, your boots are where you left them and there's no stacking to do at all."
Along with their satisfaction at resumption, though, Walker and crew did keep concerns ranging from confidence to spareness to the question of how aggressively to sail a leg that the watch leader Craig Satterthwaite referred to as "delivery" in his poignant comment, "None of is here because we want to deal with delivery … We came here because we want to go racing."
Of the confidence, Walker wrote in the night: "I wish I could say we were now racing with clear minds but we are not." Of the new mast, he wrote: "It is not normal practice to step a new mast and set off in the dark and straight offshore. New masts can sometimes take days to tune up but we don't have that time. We also don't have the safety of a spare mast waiting for us if anything goes wrong. The stakes are now very high and we must sail accordingly."
By sailing to Cape Town, Abu Dhabi would grab 10 leg points from the first leg of the nine-leg race. If the standings from Thursday were to hold, Abu Dhabi would have 16 points, six from winning the Alicante In-Port Race of October 29. Groupama 4 would lead with 32 (two from the In-Port, 30 from the leg), Telefonica would follow with 26 (one and 25), Mar Mostro would have 25 (five, 20), Camper would have 19 (four, 15) and Team Sanya three (three, zero).
cculpepper@thenational.ae
How green is the expo nursery?
Some 400,000 shrubs and 13,000 trees in the on-site nursery
An additional 450,000 shrubs and 4,000 trees to be delivered in the months leading up to the expo
Ghaf, date palm, acacia arabica, acacia tortilis, vitex or sage, techoma and the salvadora are just some heat tolerant native plants in the nursery
Approximately 340 species of shrubs and trees selected for diverse landscape
The nursery team works exclusively with organic fertilisers and pesticides
All shrubs and trees supplied by Dubai Municipality
Most sourced from farms, nurseries across the country
Plants and trees are re-potted when they arrive at nursery to give them room to grow
Some mature trees are in open areas or planted within the expo site
Green waste is recycled as compost
Treated sewage effluent supplied by Dubai Municipality is used to meet the majority of the nursery’s irrigation needs
Construction workforce peaked at 40,000 workers
About 65,000 people have signed up to volunteer
Main themes of expo is ‘Connecting Minds, Creating the Future’ and three subthemes of opportunity, mobility and sustainability.
Expo 2020 Dubai to open in October 2020 and run for six months
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
How to join and use Abu Dhabi’s public libraries
• There are six libraries in Abu Dhabi emirate run by the Department of Culture and Tourism, including one in Al Ain and Al Dhafra.
• Libraries are free to visit and visitors can consult books, use online resources and study there. Most are open from 8am to 8pm on weekdays, closed on Fridays and have variable hours on Saturdays, except for Qasr Al Watan which is open from 10am to 8pm every day.
• In order to borrow books, visitors must join the service by providing a passport photograph, Emirates ID and a refundable deposit of Dh400. Members can borrow five books for three weeks, all of which are renewable up to two times online.
• If users do not wish to pay the fee, they can still use the library’s electronic resources for free by simply registering on the website. Once registered, a username and password is provided, allowing remote access.
• For more information visit the library network's website.
Emergency
Director: Kangana Ranaut
Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Milind Soman, Mahima Chaudhry
Rating: 2/5
CRICKET%20WORLD%20CUP%20LEAGUE%202
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
MO
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The stats
Ship name: MSC Bellissima
Ship class: Meraviglia Class
Delivery date: February 27, 2019
Gross tonnage: 171,598 GT
Passenger capacity: 5,686
Crew members: 1,536
Number of cabins: 2,217
Length: 315.3 metres
Maximum speed: 22.7 knots (42kph)
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5
Tour de France 2017: Stage 5
Vittel - La Planche de Belles Filles, 160.5km
It is a shorter stage, but one that will lead to a brutal uphill finish. This is the third visit in six editions since it was introduced to the race in 2012. Reigning champion Chris Froome won that race.
MATCH INFO
Uefa Champions League, last-16, second leg (first-leg scores in brackets):
PSG (2) v Manchester United (0)
Midnight (Thursday), BeIN Sports
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
Match info:
Leicester City 1
Ghezzal (63')
Liverpool 2
Mane (10'), Firmino (45')
The Details
Article 15
Produced by: Carnival Cinemas, Zee Studios
Directed by: Anubhav Sinha
Starring: Ayushmann Khurrana, Kumud Mishra, Manoj Pahwa, Sayani Gupta, Zeeshan Ayyub
Our rating: 4/5
Director: Laxman Utekar
Cast: Vicky Kaushal, Akshaye Khanna, Diana Penty, Vineet Kumar Singh, Rashmika Mandanna
Rating: 1/5
The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre turbo 4-cyl
Transmission: eight-speed auto
Power: 190bhp
Torque: 300Nm
Price: Dh169,900
On sale: now