Dongfeng breaks rudder

However disaster is inverted for the Volvo Ocean Race leader

Overnight off the west coast of Africa, the Volvo Ocean Race leader Dongfeng Race Team suffered a collision that caused her rudder to break.

Thankfully at the time Charles Caudrelier's team had managed to pull out an 18 mile lead however having to stop for two hours to make repairs has now dropped the Franco-Chinese VO65 down into third place.

On board media reporter crewman Yann Riou reported: “At 2:10UTC, Thomas [Rouxel] was driving when we hit something. The impact was violent. We did not know what we hit. We checked the windward runner, we started to check the keel, and we wiped out. Then we realised the leeward rudder was gone. We checked if there was any water ingress into the boat.

"At 2:20 UTC, we gybed. We had two options: installing the emergency rudder, as an emergency rudder, or removing what was left from the old rudder, and fitting the replacement. We decided to go for the second option.

We prepared the rudder, we furled the A3 and dropped it, we dropped the mainsail down. At this moment, we saw Adu Dhabi Ocean Racing passing next to us… Thomas put the diving suit on. He jumped into the water. Kevin was in the aft compartment, and the rest of the crew on deck. We removed what was left from the old rudder (not much), and we put the new one in place. We hoisted the main, we hoisted the A3, we jibed, and we unfurled the A3. We are now sailing 20 knots."

Skipper Charles Caudrelier reported: “It is not easy to accept this kind of things, when they happen. We are all disappointed. We haven’t got any positions report yet, but we obviously know that ADOR is now in front of us. We believe that the Spanish boat is ahead of us too. We don’t really know about the other boats. It does not seem very fair, but there is nothing we can do about this…"