Dragon Class40 hits the bricks

Serious prang in the Class40's Atlantic Cup

The Atlantic Cup presented by 11th Hour Racing started its third and final leg racing today with its Inshore Series in Narragansett Bay. Heading into today Dragon was tied for first with Gryphon Solo 2. Dragon was leading the first race of the day en route to the first mark when they hit a rock just off Jamestown. Emma Creighton, their bowman, was launched into the water, but was quickly retrieved. The team withdrew from the race and motored back to the Newport Shipyard to assess the damage. Upon pulling the boat out of the water they discovered major damage to the keel box and have withdrawn from the remainder of the inshore series.

Dragon skipper Rob Windsor: “We went out yesterday and practiced our timed starts and felt really good about our boat handling skills. Today we were about 15 boat lengths ahead and the boat was super fast. We were getting ready to take the kite down and Emma went out on the end of the sprit to get the lazy spinnaker sheet so we could douse. As she went out and we hit a rock doing 12 knots.

"We were about 15 feet inside of where we should have been. It was a mistake, it got made and that’s it. We were in the wrong place with not enough tide. The boat is badly damaged, the keel grid, the structure foundation that holds the keel into the boat is cracked and broken inside the boat and the faring all around the outside is broken as well. I’m disappointed, I’m really disappointed, we were doing very well and we are all very disappointed.”

The third and final leg of the Atlantic Cup started at 12:05 p.m. ET today with a northerly 14-16 knot breeze. After Dragon’s incident the remaining four teams battled over three races with Pleiad Racing winning two races and JeffreyMacFarlane.com winning the third.

Heading into tomorrow one point separates Gryphon Solo 2 from Jeffrey MacFarlane.com. Racing starts at 11am tomorrow, with two currently scheduled.

JeffreyMacFarlane.com skipper Jeff MacFarlane commented: “I’m really happy with our position. The crew is working great together and we had the boat going really fast. Looking at the forecast I think it favours us for tomorrow, so we’re going to go out there and sail clean and fast and hopefully come away with the win!”