Week ashore for Wardley

Bulkhead popped on the SolOceans One Design

Following the collision suffered by the SolOceans One Design earlier in the week, Liz Wardley arrived in Port la Foret on Wednesday. Yesterday maritime expert Emmanuel Le Borgne and Jean-Marie Vaur of JMV Industries, builder of the SolOceans One-design carried out their inspection of the boat.

The conclusion of their survey is that the taping of the cockpit bulkhead has come away from the hull - where it is at its flattest. "The core samples made on the carbon sandwich show that the honeycomb is intact and not damaged," said Le Borgne. Vaur added: "The small part that is damaged is a secondary structural element, and has no effect on the reliability of the main structure, which is absolutely not damaged ".

Repairs will take less time than was initially thought and skipper Liz Wardley is expect to have to wait around a week before resuming her navigation on the first leg of the Round-the-world Reference Tour of the SolOceans - OceanoScientific® Campaign 2009-2010 towards Wellington (New Zealand).