Vendee Globe - Irish sailor dismasted 180nm from New Zealand

by Vendee Globe/Sail-World.com on 1 Jan 2017 Irish sailor Enda O'Coineen reported to Race Direction in Paris at 0830hrs UTC today (Sunday 1st January) that the mast of his IMOCA Kilcullen Voyager-Team Ireland has broken.

He is sailing in the Vendee Globe non-stop solo round the world race which started in Les Sables d'Olonne, France on Sunday 6th November. He was lying in 15th place at the time of the incident.

Positioned some 180 nautical miles to the south east of Dunedin, New Zealand O'Coineen, 60, was racing in 35kts of SSE wind when the rig broke. The skipper is uninjured and reported that he was starting to secure his boat and the broken pieces of the rig and planned to head to New Zealand which, in the current weather situation, is downwind for him.

The skipper is in contact with his Technical Team and Race Direction. A full assessment of his situation is being made and more details will be published later.

Earlier the Irish sailor had pulled into the south of New Zealand after sailing 280 miles to the north west of his original track.

O'Coineen completed an exhausting set of repairs to his computers, reset his automatic pilots and secured his mainsail with two reefs and the option to go just a little smaller, before getting back on the racecourse on New Years Day.

He had made two failed attempts to anchor in Pegasus Bay on Stewart Island to the south of New Zealand. The beds of thick seaweed and strong NE'ly winds made it difficult for are making it hard for O'Coineen to get a secure hold. Additionally O'Coineen had damaged the mainsail track making the sail difficult to lower.

In a later report O'Coineen suffered autopilot failure in a 35kt squall, causing the 60ft yacht to crash gybe twice.

“I was caught a little bit unawares. I was in 20-25kts of breeze and a very vicious 35kts squall came through and the self-steering malfunctioned just at the wrong moment. I did an involuntary gybe and then a gybe back. The boat was out of control and I was caught without the runner properly on and the mast snapped. I have to laugh because if I don't I will cry. The mast came clean off at the deck and in fact it was intact. But the whole rig went over the side. I had the difficult decision to make whether to try and save the rig or whether to save the hull of the boat.”

For the full update click here