Vendee Globe - Repair and Jury Rig process underway for Conrad Colman

by Richard Gladwell, Sail-World.com NZ on 12 Feb 2017 Dismasted Vendee Globe competitor, Conrad Colman has started the repair and Jury rig process in an attempt to cover the remaining 700nm to the finish in France.

Currently he is 300nm off the coast of Portugal.

The latest social media message from the sailor aboard Foresight Natural Energy reads:

'Busy program: get sails out to prop the boom, work on repairs, wait for it to dry. Install a system to lift the 85kg boom & rig'

His previous message sent 24 hours earlier read: 'Waiting for the sea state to improve to work on repairing the boom. first step for a jury rig'

His latest Facebook message, sent via his shore team set out his plan of attack:

Today's program on board: get all the sails out of the front hatch to prop the boom up. Work on repairing the boom. Wait for the repairs to dry. Put in place the system to lift the boom (85kg of carbon to put up safely). Then if all of these steps have worked properly, attach the boom and install the new rig. Pretty busy day for Conrad, fingers crossed all goes as planned!

Colman dismasted late Friday night around 2200hrs (UTC) after suffering a failure which dropped his entire rig, and it seems to have been cutaway, with sails and a partially broken boom remaining. He was sailing upwind into an Atlantic gale at the time of the incident.

After sorting out the immediate situation, Colman was forced to remain below on Foresight Natural Energy, which is attempting to become the first yacht to complete the Vendee Globe Race for a solo circumnavigation, using only renewable energy resources.

The sea state was such that Colman was forced to remain below decks as the sea conditions were still too dangerous to try and work on the deck. The forecast for the area, some 270 miles NWW of Lisbon, advised that the winds are still more than 30kts and the seas big and confused.

However the latest weather prognosis is for the winds to shift to the SW and drop to 20-25kts, and it would seem that the 32year old New Zealander, who lives in France has settled on a repair plan and will will attempt to emulate the feat of the 65ft Peter Blake skippered Ceramco New Zealand in sailing 3,000nm under Jury rig to finish the first leg of the 1981/82 Whitbread Round the World Race.

From photos transmitted from Foresight Natural Energy, the mainsail boom appears to have a impact carbon fracture, which will need to be repaired or cut and sleeved, before being erected to support a very reduced sail plan.

Raising the boom into place alone will probably be Colman's biggest challenge - as unlike the Ceramco NZ situation 36 years ago will not have the assistance of a 12 strong crew to control the boom as it is raised into a position where it can be usefully used as a spar.

Currently Colman is still in 10th place on the water, but will lose this in the next 24hours. However just finishing the race will be a major achievement as it was for Jean-Pierre Dick in the previous edition of the race, who finished fourth overall after sailing the last 2650nm without a keel.