Inside the crash box

Designer Gilles Ollier discusses the breakage of Orange II's bow crash box and how they have fixed it

On Thursday 19 February at 11.00 GMT, Bruno Peyron revealed the damage to Orange II's starboard bow - the crash box had disappeared during the night - and that the maxi catamaran would be returned to Lorient to effect repairs.

Upon hearing the new Chantier Multiplast and the Gilles Ollier Design Team leapt into action in order to enable Orange II to be ready to set sail again as soon as possible.

As Orange II headed back to Lorient, the Multiplast team prepared the new set of foam blocks used in the bow crash boxes. This operation consists of layering the sheets of foam to a 200 millimetre thickness.

Meanwhile another team were sorting out the logistics so that the catamaran could have her mast removed and be lifted out of the water immediately upon her arrival.

Orange II arrived at the Le Defi base in Lorient on Sunday morning and the complete hoisting operation was finished early Sunday afternoon.

With the catamaran barely touched down on the hard, tents, heating and scaffolding were erected around her an the round the clock work began with the team preparing the surfaces of the crash boxes and gluing on the block foam that had been prepared in the yard. This was following by the shaping of the foam to create the desire bow shape.

This afternoon (Monday), lamination should start which will be finished by the end of the day. The finishing touches and the painting will then be completed over the course of tonight.

At the high speed that these maxi-multihulls go, the crash box on the bows is indispensable. In the event of a collision with a floating object, it enables the shock of the impact to be absorbed in order to help prevent extensive structural damage. The one on the Orange II’s starboard hull fulfilled its role perfectly with the crash box becoming detached cleanly from the bulkhead aft of it which remains sound structurally and allowed Orange II to be sailed upwind back to Lorient.

"In fact, the hulls are equipped with a double security system," says Gilles Ollier. "There are two successive crash boxes. The first is intended to take low impact, the second is for more intensive collisions. It is a construction process that forms part and parcel of Multiplast’s creations to increase passive safety and enable the structure to continue sailing. This device has a similar function to car bumpers. They mustn’t be too solid in order to absorb the whole energy of impacts, thus avoiding more extensive damage. For example when the 75ft catamaran Jet Service V beat the North Atlantic record she did so with a crash box that was missing from the first day out…"

As regards the cause of the damage, no explanation has been given, though the crew have confirm that they weren't aware of hitting anything. However hurtling around at 30 knots the boats have huge momentum and are very noisy. The crew didn’t even notice the damage until during the following morning’s inspection and the assumption has been made that the crash box disappeared sometime during the night. From the cockpit there was no indication or reduction in performance to tell them of any damage.

A thorough inspection on shore has led Gilles Ollier to believe that a collision could have been the cause of damage, as there is slight damage to the leading edge of the starboard daggerboard.

If a favourable weather window presents itself quickly, Orange II could set off again very soon.