The skipper, Jan Guichard and the crew of the Maxi trimaran Spindrift 2 last night were forced to stop the race non-stop around the world. The reason – severe damage to right wheel.
The team was informed of the failure of coastal command yesterday at 16.06 UTC (19.06 Moscow time). Reported that the catamaran slowed to 15 knots and that the crew needs several hours in order to thoroughly analyze the situation. At that moment, Spindrift 2 was 1200 nautical miles from Cape Luwin.
Three hours later, the skipper again made contact and was told that the wheel is damaged badly and that repairs on the go – too big a risk.
“We have no other choice but to stop the struggle for the establishment of a world record. This is a severe blow for the whole team, said Guichard and added. – We are now moving towards the South East coast of Australia, which we plan to achieve over the four days.”
A sad result. The more that for 16 days and 11 and a half thousand nautical miles of Spindrift 2 was ahead of schedule trimaran IDEC-SPORT with a skipper Francis Guaiana that from 2017 owns the Jules Verne Trophy.
At the same time, recall that for Spindrift 2 and Guichard this is the fourth unsuccessful attempt to set a world circumnavigation record.
In 2016, the team was forced to stop the race when the finish line was only 2600 miles – because of the massive anticyclone that’d have to go over the edge. A second attempt a header made in early January of last year, but after a few hours after the start gave the command to return to port. Finally, after another few days, Spindrift 2 is re-started, however, in the first day racing lost their mast.
Downright bad luck…
anotherfailurespindrift
What do you think?