The race is not always to the swift, as the crew on Telefónica Blue discovered on the first night of the Volvo Ocean Race when their boat, one of two competitors owned by the Spanish communications company, became the first - and certainly not the last - casualty of this gruelling event.

Bouwe Bekking's crew were battling to get back into the round-the-world race yesterday after their boat was slowed by steering damage 20 miles out from Alicante, the start of the first leg to Cape Town. The light and fast Telefónica Blue had easily won last week's in-port preliminary race, which carries points that count towards the final total, and had led at the start on Saturday in winds of more than 25mph before one of the tiller arms broke, disabling a rudder.

Bekking, who had to abandon ship in the previous Volvo race, in 2006, when the keel of his boat, Movistar, was ripped from the hull, turned towards Málaga for emergency repairs, but his crew were able to create an ad hoc tiller and, with the winds likely to drop, Telefónica Blue hugged the Spanish coast for much of yesterday, while Bekking weighed up whether to dock in Gibraltar and risk losing the breeze.

Eventually, at 8pm, the Dutchman told his crew to stop in port to carry out proper repairs, which will incur a penalty of at least 12 hours. “We had great speed but all of a sudden there was a sickening crack,” Bekking said.

Telefónica Blue was at that stage almost 60 miles behind the pair of Ericsson boats who were leading the fleet out into the Atlantic. In third place, and doing well after a few problems just before the start with the keel computer and mainsail, was Green Dragon, which is funded by Irish and Chinese investors and skippered by Ian Walker, of England, whose sailing CV is impressive but who is tackling his first circumnavigation.

Walker has won two Olympic silver medals and coached Shirley Robertson's Yngling crew to a gold at the 2004 Olympics. He was skipper of GBR Challenge in the 2003 America's Cup, but has never sailed across the Equator, which means that he must soon face the traditional degrading initiation at the hands of “King Neptune”. Walker said: “I've overheard my crew preparing for this. I'm expecting a beasting, so I have reminded them who hands out P45s.”

Green Dragon is a new venture, cashing in on the decision to end the transatlantic leg of this race in Galway. The team were formed in August last year, construction of the boat began only in October after two months of design and the boat was delivered in May. Yet Walker has gathered an experienced team, including Neal McDonald, competing for the third time, Damian Foxall, the Irishman who won last year's double-handed round-the-world race and is on his eighth circumnavigation, and Ian Moore, the winning navigator in the 2001-02 race, who will compete with Ben Ainslie in the TeamOrigin entry for the next America's Cup.

Ainslie had dinner with Walker last week and the skipper raised the prospect of tempting the triple Olympic champion to join Green Dragon for a leg, perhaps one of the shorter ones where his match-racing skills will be useful. “I wouldn't rule out him doing part of this race,” Walker said. “Whatever sailing he turns his hand to, he'll be successful.” Green Dragon's backers are hoping the same is true of their skipper.