Out of the water in Cape Town

Ropes through rudders, blown off fairings revealed as the VO70 boats are lifted

Understanding why The Black Pearl pulled out of the first leg can be seen by looking at the underside of Brasil 1's canting keel system. The Farr arrangement seems a little more complicated than Juan K's design for ABN AMRO. The rectangular area above is curved, allowing a fairing plate with a similar curve to cover up the aperture in the bottom of the keel box. This fairing plate is kept in place by the use of two wedges running up either side of the fairing and through bolted from the side of this recess. In the image above the wedges have been removed and the fairing plate dropped down to the bottom of the keel foil (see below).

There is some variation between the Farr designs. While Brasil 1 has a single fairing plate on Ericsson and the Pirates' boat the fairing plate is in two parts that are joined in the middle (for ease of maintenance).

In the case of Cayard's VO70 it is understood that over the first night one of the wedges was blasted away along with one half of the fairing. As a result half of the keel aperture wsa exposed