BOR 90 has dismasted

Oracle’s Blog

James Spithill: “We had a mast failure, the mast broke and came down. Nobody was hurt and that’s the most important part. The crew are all safe and all of our support boats and contingencies that are built into the programme really showed today. I just commend the crew and all our support boats for swinging into action. Everyone is back on shore safe and we’ll roll on forwards…

“The weather was actually quite nice. It was relatively light wind speeds and the sea state was quite flat. So until we delve into it and dig deep into our analysis tools, we don’t know what the cause of the failure was…

“The real (sign of) heart in a team is the team that can come back from setbacks. This is a small setback but I have no doubt the team will bounce back… I’m sure we’ll be fine for the race (in February).”

UPDATE – 16:30 local time San Diego – The BOR 90 should be in around 17:00, with the support RIBs that have retrieved the mast a couple of hours behind.
Early indications are that the boat platform hasn’t suffered much damage, but it will take time to do a full assessment.
The shore team is geared up to dig in to the job list right away.

UPDATE – 15:15 local time San Diego – All equipment has been secured and the BOR 90 is under tow and en route to the team base. The boat is expected dockside early this evening.
On Tuesday morning, during testing on the waters off San Diego, the BOR 90 dismasted. All of the crew on board are safe. No one was hurt in the incident.
Support craft were with the race boat at the time and are currently working to salvage the rig and get the boat back to shore.

The team is investigating the cause of the failure.