Good article on Vendee Globe in NY Times
Submitted by Messing About in Sailboats Blog
Once in a while the illustrious NY Times pens a few words about sailing. When they do, it’s usually insightful and well-written. A great piece today on the Vendee Globe and the demise of so-many of the front-runners.
The agony that Yann Elies is enduring as I write this:
Also Thursday, a rescue operation was under way to retrieve Yann Elies, who broke his femur Thursday morning after being slammed to the deck by a large wave. Elies has morphine on board his boat, the Generali, but is in such pain that he has not been able to get to it, according to Véronique Teurlay, a spokeswoman for the race. Two competitors are heading his way to help and an Australian frigate is expected to retrieve Elies by Saturday.
Why Golding’s mast collapsed:
Owen said that Golding had discovered why the mast fell this time. “The wind had built from 25 to past 50 knots and the boat speed passed 30 all within two minutes,” Owen said. “The autopilot usually heads down wind to bleed the pressure while Mike takes the sails down, but the load was too great and bang.”
Golding discovered Wednesday that the running backstay, a line holding up the mast, had melted under the load on its winch and eased the mast forward, hyper-loading shrouds not meant for that kind of pressure. “We’ve never seen this happen,” Owen said. “If the rope didn’t slip, something else would have gone ‘bang.’ ”
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