Volvo OR - Team AkzoNobel back up to full speed after second repair

Great news from the team AkzoNobel crew out on the Southern Ocean this morning. In this mix of reports, images and video you can see the drama unfold - along with dramatic head cam video from Brad Farrand as he is positioned up the wildly swinging spar in a Southern Ocean gale.(As always these are HD video - and best viewed in that mode and full screen with the sound turned on (loud).

The second mast repair has worked and the sailors were able to re-hoist the mainsail at first light this morning.

In his latest video update from the on board Volvo Ocean Race on board reporter James Blake captured the tense moment this morning when the sailors held their breath as they gingerly hoisted the mainsail.

The relief was palpable as the repair held and within minutes they were back to full speed for the first time in three days.

“Second repair is holding and we hoisted the mainsail again five hours ago,” wrote skipper Simeon Tienpont in a brief email from the boat. “Going very fast now and it is unbelievably wet.

“We are hoping we can gain some miles back from now on and can get back in the race. It will be huge task but we know you guys are all cheering for us, so we are giving it our all.”

At the 0700 UTC (0800 CET) position report the crew was sailing at 22 knots (41 kilometers per hour) and gaining miles on the main pack.

Leg 3, Cape Town to Melbourne, day 7, on board AkzoNobel. Nearly ready to be put back up the mast. - photo © James Blake / Volvo Ocean Race

It was a disappointing blow when we broke our mast track and damaged our mainsail. At that moment we all felt pretty lonely on the enormous Southern Ocean. But knowing there are thousands of people thinking of us in that same moment and cheering us on helped a lot. Your support has been a real motivation booster over these last few days as we battled to get the mast fixed again.

Yesterday was a long day as we repaired all the bits and pieces on the mast, the sail battens and the sail itself. It was frustrating to then have to wait for hours for the glue to dry, but finally this morning we hoisted our mainsail again and everyone was pretty excited to go full speed again.

Unfortunately though, shock load from the first big wave tore the mainsail track off the mast again. That meant another eight hours of hard work to get the mainsail back down, clean up the track and mast again, ready for another round of glue – this time a different type.

Brad Farrand and I went up the mast to stick the track back on. It was a pretty tricky job to keep yourself in place in the big Southern Ocean seaways, 30 knots of breeze and five-degree Celsius air temperature.

It could have ended up a complete mess, with glue everywhere – on us and the mast. But surprisingly we did a cleaner job than we would have done gluing tiles in our bathrooms at home.

Now it is a waiting game. We have had a little bit of sunshine that hopefully will speed up the curing time a bit. We cannot take any risks as we are out of glue. We are also running out of time too as we need to get to Melbourne in time to start the next leg to Hong Kong.

I have a better feeling this time that the track will stay on, so cross your fingers for us. Unfortunately, I am not sure how much of a race against the fleet there is left for us now. It would have been good to make a comeback but now it will be more a race against the clock for us to be in time to start Leg 4.

Leg 3, Cape Town to Melbourne, day 7, on board AkzoNobel. Skipper Simeon Tienpont has to be careful with how much glue he uses- if this attempt fails they will only have enough for one more try - photo © James Blake / Volvo Ocean Race

AkzoNobel crew climb the damaged mast after suffering a sail track issue - now under repair 14 December, 2017 - photo © James Blake / Volvo Ocean Race