Transat Jacques Vabre - Hugo Boss arrives safely in The Azores

by Alex Thompson Racing on 20 Nov 2009
At 02.30 GMT this morning 19/11/09 Hugo Boss arrived safely into the port of Horta in The Azores.

It has been a race of highs and lows for Alex and Ross, whose Transat Jacques Vabre came to a premature end this week after a collision with an object in the water.

The race kicked off from Le Havre France on Sunday 8th November in a moderate 12 knot breeze. Hugo Boss had a strong start and by nightfall Alex and Ross made their move and headed north. 'The routing for me is the same as it has been since the English Channel, staying to the north and we've hung onto that. To be honest I'd prefer to be closer to the fleet. But we are where we are.' By the break of day on Monday 9th there were soon to find themselves the most northerly boat. The fleet had split, some including Vendee Globe winning skipper Michel Desjoyeaux took the Southern route, a tight pack stayed in the middle and Hugo Boss remained north. Alex speaking from onboard (09/11/09), 'There is a big separation in the fleet, so it will be interesting to see how this all pans out. I see 1876 have played their Stealth Card, so I will be looking closely to see where they pop out after 24 hours. Perhaps they will have headed north like us?'

They were alone but not for long. 1876 kicked in her 'Stealth Card' and went off the radar on Tuesday, she popped back up on everyone's screen's 24 hours later just 20 miles to the stern of Hugo Boss. 'If Yves Parlier, one of the great legends of solo sailing has decided to come this way then it obviously means we're going the right way, or we hope it does anyway!'.

The cards were dealt and the fleet prepared themselves for a hard week on the water, Wednesday meant survival conditions as the fleet headed into a huge low pressure system and the storm set in. A very bad sea state 5 - 8 metre high waves, along with winds of over 40 knots battered the fleet for over 34 hours.

But it was Friday that was to bring the biggest storm, winds of over 50 knots (that's over 50 mph!) hit the fleet with vengeance. Hugo Boss batten downed the hatches and held on, surviving several big knockdowns throughout the night. Talking from onboard during the storm skipper Alex Thomson said, 'it's horrific out there, just horrific, I have no other words to describe it. These are boat-breaking conditions. You can't do anything on the boat right now. The boat is not liking these conditions, we need to head south as quickly as possible, the quicker we get south the quicker this wind is going to drop.' It was BT who suffered the worst damage, after reporting the coach roof was torn and the boat was two thirds full of water, and they set off their emergency EPIRB and were force to abandon ship and rescued by a helicopter.

Hugo Boss came out the other side of the storm, relatively unscathed, damage to the port daggerboard meant a quick swap on deck, but the route ahead looked good and the trade winds were calling them. Hugo Boss moved into fourth position and race south was truly on. Sunday 15th saw the tables turn for the British duo. At approximately 1820 GMT on Sunday (15/11/09) Hugo Boss crew Alex Thomson and Ross Daniel, reported a collision with an unidentified object in the water. Hugo Boss was lying in 4th place when the damage was sustained and it was reported that they were taking on water. A pump worked overnight and the crew confirmed that they were managing the ingress of water.

On inspection in daylight on Monday morning (16/11/09) skipper Alex confirmed the damage was located on the starboard bow and although fairly localised it was allowing a fair amount of water in the boat. The skippers discussed the damage with their shore team to finalise a temporary fix, which allowed them to make for The Azores. Although the damage was small it was not possible to stop the ingress until the area would be free of water, something not possible in the ocean. Regrettably at 1300 GMT on Monday Alex and Ross made the difficult decision to officially retire from the race.

Hugo Boss has been making steady progress towards The Azores, and arrived safely this morning. The shore team will assess the damage and look to affect repairs before the boat is delivered back to Gosport.

Reporting from onboard Hugo Boss after the retirement, skipper Alex Thomson said 'We assessed the damage this morning, frustratingly it is clear that we will not be able to affect repairs whilst at sea. This is a massive blow for the team as we were racing really well. Hugo Boss had survived the very worst of the storm force conditions that had battered the fleet over the last week.

'On Friday we were knocked down several times by enormous breaking waves and despite a broken daggerboard the boat took it in her stride with no problem. It amazes me how the team of engineers and boat builders can build something strong enough to handle such conditions but they did and we were fully confident in the boat. We were in a strong position on the race course and although we had lost some miles due to our daggerboard our northerly route had paid off as we remained in touch with the leaders. We still had half the race ahead of us but the hard part was well and truly done and we had trade wind sailing to look forward to. I am brutally disappointed that somebody's discarded waste has stopped our race. If the hull had not been breeched or if we could stop the water ingress we could carry on no problem and I felt confident we would have done a good job for the rest of the race. As I said last night we feel like we have done the hard bit, so this is a tough blow for the whole team.'

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