The Official
Website of the
International
Sailing Federation

Just as kingfisher2's luck was turning, almost a full day ahead of Peyron's Jules Verne record pace, with excellent wind forecast for the days to come and with Geronimo virtually becalmed in the South Atlantic, a phone call to mission control confirmed the worst. 'This is the call I was hoping never to have to make...we've been dismasted...20 minutes ago' a dispirited Ellen reported.

Kingfisher2 was sailing in moderate conditions of 25-30 knots of wind in a 1.5 metre swell under full mainsail and spinnaker approximately 100 miles south east of the Kerguelen Islands (50 50'S 72 08'E). Suddenly without warning the mast came crashing down, falling forward and missing the 3 crew who were on deck at the time.

The 39.5 metre carbon mast broke in two places - the reason for the dismasting is not known. The mast fell forward and sideways over the port (leeward) hull - the bottom 10 metre section of the mast has been salvaged. But the remainder of the mast, rigging and sails were all cut away to prevent any further damage to the boat - a broken section of the mast in the water punctured a small hole in the port hull but the boat is not taking on water and is now in a good and seaworthy condition.

The Jules Verne lives up to its reputation as one of the toughest round the world challenges - now 8 out of 12 record attempts have failed since the first Jules Verne record attempt in 1993. The existing record is held by Orange (Bruno Peyron) at 64 days, 8 hours, 37 minutes and 24 seconds. Whether Olivier de Kersauson and his crew on board Geronimo, currently just over a day ahead of this record, can better this time remains to be seen.

Chaos aboard the boat

FROM GERRY MURPHY, CEO KINGFISHER PLC:

'We obviously share Ellen and the crew's immense disappointment at the dismasting of KINGFISHER2. However, the safety and well being of Ellen and her crew has always been our main concern and it remains the most important thing to us.

'The Kingfisher group is extremely proud to be associated with Ellen and her crew. Individually and as a team. They embody all the quantities and values that we look for in our staff. Their determination, talent and will to succeed are an example to us all.

'We are sure that they will overcome this disappointment to continue their search for new and bigger ocean-racing challenges.'


EMAIL FROM ELLEN RECEIVED IN THE EARLY HOURS OF THIS MORNING

I'm sitting here at my chart table feeling quite sick inside. I can feel the water running by the hull, and feel the waves take KINGFISHER2 along - but not at the 20 knot average of earlier. For now our trip as we knew it is over. At 2222 on the 23rd of feb I was jolted forward on the chart table seat whilst discussing weather with our router meeno schrader. Jolts forward happen quite often in these boats as we fire down waves - but this was different, this was a gut wrenching ear piercing crunching and snapping sound. I dropped the phone and hurled myself towards the companionway - looking round my feet as i went to check water coming onboard from anywhere - nothing. As I reached the hatch all became clear in a flash of nausea...the 39.5 metre mast, which has powered us ahead of the record over the past 24 days, was no longer.

We shall most likely never know the cause of our dismasting, and in some cases you just have to accept them for what they are.

It would be very wrong to say that this trip has not been a massive challenge so far, but equally nothing, at any stage in this trip as brought tears to my eyes. And the tears in my eyes right now come with frustration and anger, as I grit my teeth together - not through struggling with other issues, but with the anger that I feel right now at having let so many people down. So much work has gone into this project - so much energy and commitment, each fitting sealed - each lashing tied - and here we were cutting parts of it over the side. It's so destructive, so final and so over...

So sitting here I feel empty and sad, above all so relieved that no-one bar our boat was hurt, as that would have been the winner in any one 2 one. But at the same time I feel proud; I feel proud of the strength of the crew - proud of their commitment and humour, proud of their smiles and proud of the way that they have handled their frustration too. The strange thing is that suddenly, although we are all disappointed we have shifted our focus on getting ourselves moving, and to what looks like Australia as soon as we can.

I glance down at my notebook to jot down something to remember - seeing the pages and pages of notes preparing things for this trip. All of a sudden our challenge feels like it was days away, as if it's almost a distant memory. Just three hours ago I was having stitches put in my hand after cutting it open, then an hour ago me cutting through rigging as if there was no tomorrow - and now even that seems irrelevant... no longer are we living each day for our distance run, checking the lines are leading correctly and, or thinking about every aspect of boat speed. It's over - our Jules Verne is over.

It's a funny feeling sitting out here thinking about all that has happened, and wondering what might have been. But then the 'what if's' will always exist in life. They will never disappear, but you can choose to ignore them...what's done is done - and however you want to look at it - you learn from it, we have learnt from it. We must just get up and on to the next challenge...

Ellen.

ELLEN MACARTHUR

'I was in the nav stations speaking with our weather router Meeno Schrader on the satellite phone when I heard an almighty crunching and grinding sound... It felt like we had hit something as the boat slowed so quickly but when I got on deck and looked up the rig had gone over the side - it is the last thing you want to see...

Fortunately, only the on-watch crew were on deck [3 people, Neal, Bruno, Youngster, with Jason below temporarily] - everyone is okay. We are very lucky if we had been doing a manoeuvre or changing watch systems it could have been a different story. It's pretty frightening to see your world fall over the side. We just cut everything away as quickly as we could [it took about an hour] to get us free of the broken mast.

As soon as I heard the bang - I ran down the whole length of the boat - thinking we had hit something - to check there was no water coming in anywhere. When I came up the hatch and looked up there was not mast - one minute 39 and a half metres of mast standing there, the next nothing.

First reaction was to make sure everyone is safe, then we just had to get on with cutting away the pieces of the mast and sails that were floating in the water but trying to keep as much as we could. We managed to save 10 metres of the bottom of the mast - everything else went - sails, rigging. Just saw it all float away into the Southern Ocean, along with the chance of breaking the record.

These things happen so quickly - we don't know what went wrong. No one was looking at the rig the moment before it happened - we may never know why, that is often the case with dismasting. It was a brand new rig - the guys had worked on it meticulously - and the issues we had in Plymouth (replacing part of the mast track) are certainly unrelated. We will probably never know why it broke."

NEAL McDONALD:

'We were running along in breeze 28-33 knots - few hours prior to this the sea state had been pretty unpleasant but it had flattend out - and we were sailing at between 18 and 23 knots straight down the track. It happened alarmingly quickly - just thankful no one around on that side of the boat...

We have a hole in the side of the boat from where a broken section of the mast punched through - if the sea state had been worse it could have been a different story and perhaps a sunken hull. The look on the guys faces says it all - we were getting back in the money, now its total doom and gloom, just silence...'