The Dongfeng Race Team has put the fear of God into the competition. Early on Saturday morning at 4.10 a.m. German time, the Chinese-French team with Swedish support reported the breakage of the left of its two rudders after a collision with an unknown object ("UFO"). However, the team skippered by Charles Caudrelier, who was in the lead at the time, did not let the shock stop them for long. Within two hours, the team had managed to remove the broken rudder and install a replacement. Thomas Rouxel, who had been steering during the collision and had been thrown against the steering wheel by the force of the impact, had to dive in pitch darkness.
The rudder had broken off near the hull in the collision. When the accident happened, the Dongfeng Race Team had an 18 nautical mile lead over Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing. After the repair, they were nine nautical miles behind Ian Walker's team. And the Danish team Vestas Wind had also pulled ahead. Dongfeng's team manager Bruno Dubois said after the rude wake-up call: "I went to bed happy because we had an 18 nautical mile lead."
The team were determined to regain their hard-earned lead after successfully repairing the damage and brilliantly overcoming their biggest challenge to date. And the underdogs did so impressively. On Sunday morning, the Dongfeng Race Team was back in the lead, 32 nautical miles ahead of the Vestas Wind and Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing teams. Two nautical miles behind them, the Dutch team Brunel was lurking for its chance. Another six nautical miles behind Team Brunel was the Spanish team Mapfre. Team Alvimedica had lost even more ground with 70 nautical miles and the women's team SCA with 91 nautical miles behind the unstoppable Dongfeng Race Team, which raced across the Atlantic early on Sunday morning with the best three-hour average speed of 17.5 knots and the most southerly course in the fleet with destination Cape Town.
Click here for the video showing Dongfeng's repair at night:
Tatjana Pokorny
Sports reporter
