THE Volvo Ocean Race has got off to the worst possible start, with four of the seven boats suffering serious damage during the first 24 hours of the first offshore leg. The carnage, which forced two boats, Bouwe Bekking’s Movistar and Paul Cayard’s The Black Pearl, to head to port for repairs, has served only to underline fears that the new breed of Volvo Open 70s are not yet ready for ocean racing and certainly not the immense challenge of the Southern Ocean.

The most worrying is the damage to Movistar, a Bruce Farr-designed hull that had completed more mileage in testing in the build-up than any other boat. However, this was not enough to prevent serious structural failure when the boat flew off the front of a wave while hammering down the Portuguese coast in gale-force conditions after the start from Vigo on Sunday.

Movistar slammed back down into the sea and as she did so the crew heard what they described as a “sickening loud crack and bang”, which proved to be the carbon-fibre structure in which the hydraulic rams controlling the swing keel are seated, giving way. More worrying was that the huge instantaneous loading on the keel caused the damage to spread to the main bulkhead, which buckled badly.

Bekking, who started among the favourites, had no choice but to head for Cadiz as he began assessing damage that seemed likely at least to put him out of this first leg to Cape Town after less than 400 miles of the 6,400-mile course.

“We will wait to hear what the experts say,” Bekking said. “For the time being, we have not retired from this leg, but we fear the worst. All the guys are sitting on deck, staring blankly. A dream has come apart abruptly.”

Cayard’s crew on The Black Pearl were hit by a leak that disabled the keel controls, leaving the keel jammed and forcing Cayard to head for Cascais in Portugal for repairs.

There have been some dramatic moments, too, on Mike Sanderson’s ABN Amro One. The boat took off as the wind reached 38 knots and ended up on its side. Two members of the crew, Jan Dekker and Tony Mutter, were swept along the cockpit by a wall of water of so much force that they smashed one steering wheel, the pedestal on which it was mounted and the safety frame around it, leaving a hole in the deck. The crash also broke the tiller-arm connecting the wheel to the port-side rudder, which the crew have attempted to repair using long lengths of threaded rod and spectra rope.

Meanwhile, the Australian team on Sunergy were struggling to cope after a rushed preparation. The goose-neck fitting connecting the boom to the mast and their jib halyard broke when they were struck by a night-time squall in which the wind reached 50 knots.

The catalogue of destruction has left the race leadership in the hands of the young crew on ABN Amro Two, skippered by Sebastien Josse, who looked like covering close to 500 miles in the first 24 hours. They were 10 miles ahead of their team-mates on ABN Amro One. Torben Grael’s team on Brasil 1 were third, 14 miles behind the leader, with Ericsson, skippered by Neal McDonald, another 27 miles back.

• Ellen MacArthur and Roland Jourdain, of France, on board Sill have taken the lead in the Transat Jacques Vabre after fighting back from a deficit of more than 30 miles behind Jean-Pierre Dick and Loick Peyron on Virbac. As the yachts passed the Cape Verde islands on their eighth day at sea, MacArthur and Jourdain whittled away Virbac’s advantage in the fast- running conditions. Last night, Sill was 1.9 miles ahead of Virbac, with Jean le Cam and Kito de Pavant, of France, on Bonduelle another 101 miles back in third place.