Chessie Racing owner and captain George Collins steered his boat into the lead on the third leg of the Whitbread Round The World Race last night as Innovation Kvaerner stormed back into third position after undergoing major repairs.

Collins guided his craft from eighth position earlier in the day into first place and now has a 2.8mile lead over fellow American entry Toshiba.

Meanwhile, overall leader Innovation Kvaerner is just 3.8 miles behind after being forced to stop off the coast of south-west Australia for repairs. A helicopter had to drop a repair kit before the crew could fix the dents and small buckles on the lower part of the mast.

After a spectacular start to the third leg, the nine-boat fleet settled into a slog to windward in breezes of more than 30 knots down the coast to Cape Leeuwin, and before 12 hours had elapsed, the race leader, Innovation Kvaerner, was in trouble. Her skipper radioed the shore crew for instant assistance but it was more than 14 hours after the emergency call that she was able to anchor and have the repair kit dropped from the helicopter.

Valuable time had been lost, both in the diversion and the 25 minutes at anchor, but at least they were

back in the race having dropped to last place, nine miles behind the leader at the time, Paul Cayard's EF Language, before they stormed back to finish in fifth place last night.