Ellen MacArthur's bid to break the Jules Verne round-the-world record ended dramatically when the mast on her boat Kingfisher broke in two places. "This is the call I was hoping never to have to make, we've been dismasted, 20 minutes ago," a dispirited MacArthur was quoted as saying from her maxi catamaran.
After 26 days at sea, Kingfisher, with Kerryman Damian Foxall as one of the crew of 14, was almost a full day ahead of Frenchman Bruno Peyron's record pace, sailing in moderate conditions at 25 to 30 knots in a 1.5-metre swell under full mainsail and spinnaker 100 nautical miles south-east of the Kerguelen Islands.
Kingfisher's bid was ended without warning when the mast came crashing down, falling forward and missing the three crew who were on deck at the time. The 39.5-metre carbon mast broke in two places, with the reason unknown. MacArthur added: "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."
The crew salvaged the bottom 10-metre section of the mast, made a jury rig and were heading for Perth in Australia 2,000 miles east. A broken section of the mast punctured a small hole in the port hull but the boat did not take in water and was in seaworthy condition.
MacArthur, who was attempting to beat Peyron's record of 64 days, eight hours, 37 minutes and 24 seconds set in 2002 in his boat Orange, said: "We have had a lot of bad luck on this trip - a lot of disappointing weather situations which has put us continually behind the record. But everyone just fought on, there was never any talk of abandoning this record even in the slowest times."
She continued: "The crew were always positive, just wanting to get back at the record and in the last few days that started to happen. We got ahead of Peyron's record and were catching (rival Olivier de Kersauson's) Geronimo who has got becalmed in the South Atlantic, then bang, all of sudden it's all over. To watch all that work drift away was so painful."
Filed by Shane Murray
