More strife for Amer Sports Too

The women return to Hobart with a damaged rudder.

Amer Sport Too has returned to Hobart immediately following her restart to make repairs to her damaged rudder. According to the race rules, the boat was not able to make repairs during the pitstop and had to restart and then return to the dock.

On the 28th December, Emma Westmacott reported, "I was driving, and then thump, and the wheel was ripped out of my hand pulling my thumb backwards on the spokes. As it spun around, I grabbed it to straighten up, while Bridget Suckling looked behind from the grinders to see a shark floating belly up in a pool of red." Though Westmacott's sympathies were with the shark at the time, the damage was later to prove more significant than at first imagined.

When Amer Sports Too arrived in Hobart at the end of the race from Sydney, Keryn Henderson dived into the very cold water to inspect the rudder. "The damage was quite bad," reported skipper Lisa McDonald. "This was a nasty blow as it meant it was too much of a risk to sail to New Zealand without getting it fixed. It took a long time for Keryn to warm up, but only a very short time to make the decision to restart the leg, then come back in for an emergency stop."

"Until we lift the boat out of the water, we will not know for certain what is wrong with the rudder, but the rudder has been damaged, both on the leading edge as well as a significant crack on the aft edge going forward. A horizontal crack which means that any side loading would be detrimental to the rudder and reaching conditions or heavy air conditions would certainly load the rudder up.

Earlier, the Nautor support team had successfully transferred a new headstay strop to the boat. "In the wee small hours of the morning Ruff and Will from our shore team were commandeering a cray fishing boat and two great Aussies named Andy and Rod to help in the mercy run," reported McDonald. "The dash, drop and transfer was successful and we were able to carry on our way to Hobart with a working headstay again, thanks to our crazy and brilliant shore team.

At this stage it is not know if the rudder is repairable or how long it will be before Amer Sport Too can restart the leg to Auckland.