The incident, the exact cause of which is still unclear, occurred yesterday afternoon at around 4pm - just as Sampei passed the fringes of a heavy weather front with an average force of 6 and gusts of 7 Beaufort. On the Géovoile tracker of the Mini-Transat organisers, the Japanese can be seen drifting shortly afterwards (see second photo in the gallery above).
The skipper informed one of the regatta organisers' support boats via marine radio, whose crew in turn contacted the maritime rescue coordination centre. They sent out a lifeboat, which reached Sampei at around 10 p.m. and towed the shipwrecked vessel to the harbour of Cariño, a town in the province of La Coruña.
After a detailed analysis of the damage, the DMG Mori Sailing Team will determine tomorrow whether there is a possibility of repairing the Proto, built in the moulds of the Maxi 6.50 from carbon fibre, in time for the start of the second leg and bringing it to the Canary Island of La Palma. CEO Irene Bader confirmed this to YACHT online late yesterday evening.
Undoubtedly an enormous feat, if not a logistical nightmare. But no mini transat skipper can rely on such professional structures as Sampei and his colleague Laure Galley, who has been in the leading group with an identical Proto since the start of the race.
The two are part of the DMG Mori Sailing Academy, which in turn represents a kind of nautical trainee programme for the actual heart of the campaign: Kojiro Shiraishi's Imoca racing team. It is run and financed by the German-Japanese world market leader for machine tools, DMG Mori.
While Charles Euverte, the experienced team manager, is facing an exhausting day full of difficult decisions, the solo skippers at sea have survived the worst of it. Instead of too much wind against them, they have had the opposite since this morning: barely enough from astern.
48 hours slow motion" (weather router Christian Dumard)
Friday and Saturday will give the minists time to recover and get their boats in shape. "After this weak wind phase, we can hope for the establishment of a reasonably persistent north or north-easterly current," says Dumard. "If this is confirmed, the stragglers will benefit from a little more pressure than the leaders and will be able to make up some of the ground they have lost," announces the meteorologist, who is one of the most experienced in the world.
According to Dumard's routings, the front runners will need a total of nine days for this first stage of the La Boulangère Mini Transat. He had already made this prediction at the start. However, this is by no means true for the entire field, which has now spread far apart. After not even 500 of the 1,350 nautical miles, there is already a 250-mile gap between first and 31st place in the Protos.
Felix Oberle from Switzerland continues to sail sensationally well on his maxi 6.50 "Mingulay". The 32-year-old engineer from Aarau was in second place in the series minis for a long time during the night and remains within striking distance. Unlike a handful of runaways who tried to get round the outside of the traffic separation area off Cape Finisterre and were likely to lose a lot of time, he remained true to his original tactics and stayed under land. With success!
To the Mini Transat Tracker please click here!
Jochen Rieker
Herausgeber YACHT
