Volvo Ocean Race, broken rudder on Dongfeng
Dongfeng Race TeamEnglishIn evidenzaIncidentiOceanoVelaVolvo Ocean Race 18 Ottobre 2014 Zerogradinord 0
Atlantic Ocean – From Yann Riou, Dongfeng Race Team: “At 02.10 UTC, Thomas was driving when we hit something. The impact was violent. We did not know what we hit. We checked the windward runner, we started to check the keel, and we wiped out. Then we realised the leeward rudder was gone“.
“We checked if there was any water ingress in the boat. At 02.20 UTC, we jibed. We had two options: installing the emergency rudder, as an emergency rudder, or removing what was left of the old rudder, and putting the new one in place. We decided to go for the second option. We prepared the rudder, we furled the A3, with dropped the A3 down, we dropped the mainsail down. At this moment, we saw Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing passing next to us. Thomas put the diving suit on. He jumped into the water. Kevin was in the aft compartment, and the rest of the crew on deck. We removed what was left from the old rudder (not much), and we put the new one in place. We hoisted the main, we hoisted the A3, we jibed, and we unfurled the A3. We are now sailing 20 knots“.
“We are all disappointed. We haven’t got any position report yet, but we obviously know that Abu Dhabi is now in front of us. We believe that the Spanish boat is ahead of us too. We don’t really know about the other boats. It does not look very fair, but there is nothing to do about this…“
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