Ecover breaks mast

Just six hours after picking up stricken competitor Alex Thomson so disaster strikes Mike Golding's Open 60

At 1150h GMT this morning Ecover, skippered by Mike Golding in the Velux 5 Oceans, broke part of her mast while in the Southern Ocean, some 1000 miles from Cape Town, South Africa. Only six hours earlier Mike Golding had completed the daring rescue of his fellow competitor in the Velux 5 Oceans solo round the world race, Alex Thomson.

Golding confirmed that the mast had broken in two places, the first just above the main spreaders and the second about 1.5 metres from the top of the mast and that he and Thomson were securing the loose parts of the rig.  The mainsail is intact and all the sails are still on board the boat other than the genoa. Golding and Thomson are currently working to getting back under sail with a staysail and a reefed mainsail so that they can begin heading to Cape Town, some 1000 miles away.

We have since learned the failure of Ecover's mast occurred when the boat was hit by a 40 knot squall while both skippers were still recovering from their respective ordeals below decks.

Golding commented: "It was slightly odd the way it happened but since then we have both come to the conclusion here that it was probably damage that was already there. Yes, it was a squall. Yes, we were going fairly fast, but we were not pushing and since the pick up we had spent most of the time drinking coffee, catching up and generally recovering from what we had both been through. We had not invested a great deal of energy in making the boat go fast.

"We were going along downwind with the wind at 135 to 140 degree true wind angle, just white sails one reef in the main and the Code Eco (a big all purpose headsail) and a squall came in. We dialled down and the boat started to round up a little. I eased the vang (to depower the mainsail) but it was already soft. I went for the mainsheet and just then I looked up only to see it explode just above the main spreaders.

"It is difficult to say what happened. There are two breaks. One is about a metre and a half above the third reef and the other is on the first reef, so it is hard to say which went first. I am suspicious of the one where the top of the mainsail was, but it is difficult to know which went first. Either failure would cause the other."

"There was no broach, We did not even lay over. I doubt we even exceeded 20 degrees of heel. It was not special. The only thing special about the squall was the coldness of it. It was extremely cold, dense air- even though the scientists would tell you that is rubbish. That was the only thing that was different about that squall from any other that we had been through en route here. Compared to the conditions we were sailing in two nights ago, it was a walk in the park.

"We have not really got things tidied up yet or made any decisions. We have the main back on the boom, all our principal sails are still here. We are sailing downwind. We want to get the two bits of the mast so that we can learn what happened.

"Alex is fine. His hand has a skin injury, mainly a very serious bad graze which is sore in the salt water. This just doesn't seem terribly fair after what has happened in the last day what we have both been through. It is rubbish for me and rubbish for Alex. The last thing Alex wanted to do was get plunged into the middle of another problem, and it clearly rubbish for me, but it is one of the things that can happen when you are engaged in racing like this. We are fortunate that we have been left with the tools to continue sailing and make some choices about where we are going.

"I have to say that this morning we were in cruise mode, very definitely in mode commensurate with what had just happened for us."

In thedailysail's new 'videos of disaster' series, a full explanation of Ecover's rig in working form can be seen here.