'Weak but okay' yachtie tells medical team

8.00 am

American yachtsman Keith Kilpatrick has told how he ate nothing for nearly nine days as Grant Dalton's round-the-world yacht pounded through the Southern Ocean.

Kilpatrick was taken off Amer Sports One off the southwestern coat of Australia overnight, after he was confined to his bunk by vomiting and crippling stomach pains early last week.

Roger Nilson, the navigator on Amer Sports One who is also a doctor, inserted a saline drip and gave Kilpatrick morphine for a suspected intestinal blockage.

Kilpatrick stepped on to a chase boat early today as Amer Sports One approached Eclipse Island, the waypoint in the second leg of the Volvo Ocean Race from Cape Town to Sydney.

Kilpatrick wore a dry suit and a lifejacket as he stepped off the stern of Amer Sports One into a rigid-hulled inflatable boat and was taken to a launch for the ride to hospital.

Today Kilpatrick was reported to be in a comfortable condition with the blockage apparently clearing itself.

On the transfer launch Kilpatrick told crew he felt weak but okay.

"I still haven't tried eating anything. I've been on liquids only for eight and a half days. Someone of my size could do with a lot more to eat than just soup and water."

He became ill on Monday last week just after coming off watch.

"I got up for my next watch and started really feeling bad about three-quarters of the way through it. I went down below and didn't have any dinner, then after half an hour lost everything I had in my stomach.

"All through the night I was being ill until I had nothing left in my stomach and all of Tuesday I had cramps.

"We actually thought it was food poisoning until Wednesday and Roger decided it was a little bit more than that. He called the doctors in England, who suggested giving me a little water -- boom, it came right back up," Kilpatrick said.

After seven or eight days recuperation, he hoped to rejoin the yacht in Sydney.

Early today the Swedish yacht SEB, skippered by Gunnar Krantz, was the first to round Eclipse Island and had a lead of 11 nautical miles over John Kostecki's illbruck.

SEB was the first yacht to break free of a high pressure belt around one hundred miles south of Eclipse.

As soon as SEB passed the island, the crew tacked to head back south for the stronger winds that will take them across the Great Australian Bight and to Bass Strait, 1300 nautical miles away.

Assa Abloy rounded Eclipse in third place followed by News Corp and djuice, Amer Sports One and Amer Sports Too.

- NZPA

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