Shortly after 8.30 am on Sunday, the radio message came from Aksel Mandahl, the navigator of the Chinese participant on "Team Sanya": The boat had suffered serious damage to the hull and would have to head for the nearest harbour. The team spoke of 43 knots of wind and a wave height of more than 10 metres at the time of the incident. After the mast breakage of "Abu Dhabi", a third of the fleet was already out of action in the first 24 hours of the first leg.
"We heard a crash, but didn't think it was anything serious," said "Sanya" skipper Mike Sanderson in an interview after he had brought the boat and crew safely to Motril. "Suddenly the guys realised that we were taking on water in the bow area. In the harbour, we then saw that the laminate of the outer skin was missing over a length of more than two metres in the area of the folding bulkhead." You could see daylight from the inside, said the experienced skipper and two-time VOR winner.
If the door in the watertight main bulkhead had not withstood the pressure, Sanderson says, the boat would probably have sunk: "We were lucky." He suspects the cause was minor damage caused by an unnoticed collision with a piece of flotsam, which became acute when the hull hit the rough sea. There was also one casualty: bowman Andy Meikeljohn broke his foot during a hectic sail change, according to team sources.
It was not clear immediately after the incident what would happen next. Sanderson did say that they would not give up the regatta, but would try to get the boat ready to race again by the In-Port Race in Cape Town - but the next few days will have to show whether this is realistic. In the meantime, the second damaged boat, "Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing", is back in Alicante, where a new mast is being fitted to get the boat back on the course as quickly as possible.
In Monday's position report at 01.55 CET, the New Zealand "Camper" was still in the lead, followed by "Telefonica", "Groupama" and "Puma". The latter have lost ground and are more than 20 miles behind the leaders.
More on the Event page and about the Live stream the YouTube channel and the apps for I Phone and Android.
Current positions and distances on the Live tracker.
.
