On Thursday afternoon, while training off of the team’s home base in Sanxenxo, Spain, MAPFRE suffered the first breakage of the 2017-2018 Volvo Ocean Race. The team was sailing in 25 knots of breeze and 4 meter seas, when the mast fractured above the first spreader, causing the rig to come down.
“There was a crash and then the rig started to fall to starboard,” explained Pablo Arrarte, MAPFRE’s watch captain who was sailing as skipper of the boat during the boat’s testing.
“We were sailing on quite a comfortable reach with waves also from the same direction and so at the moment we do not know why it has broken. We will have to analyse the data and the damaged parts in order to draw a conclusion.”
The crew have not suffered any injuries and after fully checking for any collateral damage to other parts of the boat it took around two hours of intense work to secure the boat and recover the broken parts of the mast and the sails.
The team’s emergency protocol was activated immediately and for safety reasons, Salvamento Marítimo [Maritime Rescue] was notified. They monitored the Spanish team’s Volvo Ocean 65 and when the crew had secured the boat the emergency services were duly informed that the crew were heading back to Sanxenxo under their own means.
