Vendee Globe - Alex Thomson describes collision in South Atlantic

by Alex Thomson Racing/Sail-World.com on 20 Nov 2016 Skipper of Hugo Boss, Alex Thomson (GBR), is the race leader in the Vendee Globe Race, a solo non stop circumnavigation, which began in early November from western France.

Two days ago he reported that one of the DSS foils on Hugo Boss had struck and unidentified object.

'We have sustained damage to one of the foils onboard after hitting something. Both Alex and the boat are fine,' his PR office reported.

Here is Alex's account of what happened..

'Having had pretty quick night where the boat was sailing high averages and the boat was super uncomfortable I had retracted the foil 30% early this morning and was sailing the boat pretty conservatively in a building breeze. At 09.35 UT this morning I was down below trying to sleep and the boat was sailing in 22kts of wind with a J2 and one reef in the main.

'I was averaging 24kts of boat speed when I heard an almighty bang and the boat stopped and turned to starboard by about 30 degrees and the rudder popped up . I quickly went on deck, eased the main sheet and realised I must have hit something. I put the rudder back down, eased the boat down wind and went to take a look and the starboard foil has broken off.

'Right now I have taken the foot completely off the throttle and changed sails and retracted the remaining part of the foil and will sail on in these conditions until the wind and sea state moderate and I can inspect the damage and assess. I didn’t see anything in the water but it felt like the boat wrapped itself around something and it has caused some pretty significant damage to my foil.

'I was instructed to carry out an internal inspection of the boat and there does not appear to be any structural damage to the hull that I can see. For now I am going to continue and assess when I get the chance.'

Currently Alex Thomson is in the leading position in the round the world race. He is currently on the same latitude as Cape of Good Hope and is the southern most boat of the lead group. Encouragingly he is making the fastest speed over the ground of the top three boats.

Video from November 16, 2016 by Alex Thomson