Greatly relieved by this morning's news. I woke twice in the night, thinking of poor Kevin Escoffier being tossed about the roaring forties in his life raft. An outstanding piece of seamanship by Jean le Cam to effect his rescue, and a good team effort with three of the other competitors also involved in the search and rescue effort.
The bow of Escoffier's boat, PRB failed, and folded up 90°. Unlike Thomson's boat, which was designed as a foiler, PRB was converted to foils, and her bow was beefed up. Not enough as it turns out.
In the light of this incident, and the failure of the bow structure of Hugo Boss, I'd be very nervous were I at the helm of one of these boats just heading into 12000 miles of the Southern Ocean, some of the wildest sailing conditions on the planet.
On a lighter note, I was greatly tickled by an outstanding piece of Google-translate. An article which had clearly been translated into English using the app had managed to convert "Le Cam avail trois ris dans sa grande voile" (le cam had 3 reefs in his mainsail) into "Le Cam had three laughs in his mainsail".
Last edited by pandy; 01/12/20 11:40 AM.
