Globe40: After keel bolt breakage in the North Atlantic: 500 nautical miles in crisis mode

She didn't actually want to go to northern Spain, where she had bought her boat almost a year ago. Her original destination was Horta in the Azores. But with her weakened keel suspension, Lisa Berger had no choice but to sail downwind for three and a half days. The young woman from Lake Attersee, who is now aiming for her next big career goal in the Globe40 double-handed regatta after the Mini-Transat, arrived in Marina Coruna early on Sunday morning. YACHT online spoke to her in the afternoon.

Lisa, how are you and your partner, Jade Edwads-Leaney, after almost 500 nautical miles with broken keel bolts?

I actually thought that we would arrive well rested in A Coruña, because we crept here with an extremely reduced sailing plan, usually only at five or six knots. That gives you plenty of time to rest. But we slept soundly for the time being.

The first time since Wednesday with the certainty that you are safe...

Yes, that was good.

What prevails now: relief - or the trauma of a wobbly keel on the North Atlantic?

To be honest, we don't have the time or the emotional capacity for anything like relief. In my head, everything revolves around the question of how we can finance the upcoming work and how long the repairs will take. After all, we were actually already running behind schedule before our qualifying trip for the Globe40.

Have you already come to terms with the horror of the bolt breakage - or have you repressed it?

Probably both. As soon as we discovered the damage, we immediately went into crisis mode, packed the grab bags, got the life raft and our survival suits ready and called the MRCC Falmouth emergency call centre. You have enough to do at first, and we worked really well as a team.

On course for Globe40: help from all sides

You weren't afraid?

Not really. I think we also had a bit of bad luck, especially with the weather: four days of westerly winds without fronts, a gift for our battered Class40! That helped us to stay calm and focussed.

The video footage of the loose bolts swinging back and forth didn't really look reassuring...

That's true. But we had no water ingress, no cracks in the keel box (a full laminate shaft in which the upper part of the keel fin is locked, ed.). And we could be sure that we wouldn't sink even if we capsized, because we had to install a lot of additional buoyancy in the hull for the Globe40. We also received immediate help from all sides, even from experts we wouldn't have thought of.

How so?

We started working on the bolt fairly quickly after the bolt breakage was discovered. uploaded a video to Instagram and Facebook. This and the information about it immediately made the rounds. The first person to contact us was Miranda Merron, the race officer for the race we had entered. She has sailed Class40s herself for many years and gave us valuable tips. But Eric Levet, a designer from Marc Lombart Yacht Design, who co-developed our Akilaria, also contacted us and advised us on how to trim the boat so that we would still have enough stability to sail in the event of keel loss due to water ballast.

As it was clear that we would be going to A Coruña because we could reach it downwind with the lowest possible load in the rig and on the keel suspension, we quickly received information about the most suitable shipyard there. It's really incredible to experience this solidarity among sailors. Social media helps tremendously with activation. And thanks to Starlink, we always had fast internet for communication.

The budding Globe40 sailors and Murphy's Law

How did you even notice the keel bolts breaking? Did the bolts break with a loud bang after a collision with flotsam?

No, we discovered the damage more by accident. We were just about to make ourselves something to eat, sitting down below amidships during navigation, when Jade noticed out of the corner of her eye that the nuts of the two central bolts that fix the upper end of the keel in the shaft were moving - the only two we hadn't replaced because they still looked so good. That was probably Murphy's Law.

So the two bolts that are most important for the integrity of the keel-hull connection?

Unfortunately, yes. We do have ten more bolts on the end plate of the keel, which are screwed to the bottom of the hull, but they are less central to the strength. The decisive factor is the positive fit of the fin in the keel box. And this is ensured by the two bolts that we broke.

How did you know they were broken?

We were able to simply unscrew them at the nuts, at least the part above the breaking point.

Do you have an explanation as to how the damage occurred?

No, we probably won't know until we've pulled the keel out of the ship. Hopefully that will happen tomorrow.

Can this be repaired reasonably quickly?

I really hope so. We can't recut the threads because the bolt size is limited according to the class rule and we've already reached the maximum. Therefore, the only option is probably to cut off the upper part of the fin and weld on a replacement piece with fresh threads, which is not entirely trivial. But we're lucky that we can have it done here in A Coruna, not at our actual destination in Horta on the Azores, where the infrastructure is nowhere near as good.

The Marina Coruna Varadero shipyard is managed by Roberto "Chuny" Bermudez de Castro, a seven-time Ocean Race participant who has a legendary reputation and who was recommended to us by many experts. That gives us hope, even if the setback three months before the start of the race is brutally tough, especially with our budget. That's why we've largely done the refit as a do-it-yourself project so far. That's why we know how time-consuming the work on the keel is and how long it took us.

Three months before Globe40: Message from the boat?

Are you already managing to take something positive out of the whole thing, or are you just exhausted and frustrated at first?

Hmm... Let's put it this way: it was of course a huge disappointment immediately. However, the qualifying race encouraged us in everything we had improved on the boat up until the keel damage. "Wilson" is simply a brilliantly cool boat that is great fun to sail. We had a lot of upwind sailing in tough conditions up until the run-off: a good 30 knots of wind and sometimes three-metre seas. She coped well with that. And somehow I have the feeling that she's talking to us - as if she wanted to say to us with the broken bolt: "Hey, there's something else you really need to fix before the start of the Globe 40."

Has confidence in the boat not suffered?

No. I would say that we feel even more connected now, partly because it all ended so smoothly. And you mustn't forget: "Wilson" is already 15 years old. We've modernised and improved an incredible amount, but not everything. Our financial framework doesn't allow for that. And we didn't have much time either: just one year will have passed between the purchase and the start of the prologue in mid-August. Other better-positioned teams have two or three years' lead time, they've just been sailing and training for a year.

If you had one wish right now, what would it be?

That we can quickly reset the keel and fix a few other little things that didn't fit during the qualifier - and that we can sail a lot from then on. We still need to find an extra budget to make that happen. So that would be my one wish, because it would open up a lot of other things. We haven't had all the new sails with us yet. Something still has to happen. But I firmly believe that we can do it! Just like we made it to A Coruña!

What advice would you give other sailors if they find themselves in a similarly critical situation?

That you should never abandon your ship prematurely as long as there is a chance of it reaching a harbour. And that we can all count on the sea rescuers. The people from MRCC Falmouth were a real support, very calm, very professional. They plotted with us every two hours for two days until the Spaniards took over. It was great to experience that!

Have you aged a year in the past three and a half days?

Hopefully not yet. But probably in the next two weeks, when we know how much the keel repair will cost and whether we can get the missing sails in time. It certainly won't be boring. That's just how ocean sailing is: you never really know what's going to happen next. Somehow I even like it!

Just last month, German shooting stars Melwin Fink and Lennart Burke from Team Next Generation Boating Around the World also decided to take part in the Globe40. The final motivation came from six-time circumnavigator Boris Herrmann. Click here for her story and her path to Globe40which starts with its prologue from Lorient on 31 August.