Hugo Boss
It sounds like a flawless déjà vu: The crossbar between the rudder quadrant and the rudder head broke again, another hydrogen generator was damaged - only this time the rudder also suffered something. Thomson had almost exactly the same damage on the way to the equator and mastered the challenge of repairs at sea with ease with on-board resources.
Only yesterday afternoon Thomson described the course of the second crash, which took place on Sunday evening, to race management as follows:
"At 10:20 pm I rammed a piece of floating debris at a good 22 knots of boat speed. I was down at the navigation table when it happened. There was a loud bang to be heard in the bow area, I think because the keel or the sword had hit something. After that to hear a few quieter, softer impacts, because the floating debris obviously rumbled along the hull, and then at the end again a loud bang when it finally hit the rudder and the hydrogenerator.
The broken oar rod
When I fell on the companionway, the rudder was up and the hydrogen generator was dragged along in the water. The boat shot into the wind without an oar, and I quickly rolled away the headsail. On closer inspection, it became clear that the rudder safety device had triggered on impact and the blade was folded up exactly as it should. That's why it's only slightly damaged. But the propeller of the hydrogen generator broke and the bracket smashed and went overboard. In addition, the rudder connecting rod is broken into three parts - the one that has not yet been repaired!
I then swapped the poles so I could continue sailing. The waves were quite high, washed over the cockpit and hit the raised rudder again and again. Both rudder cassettes were slightly damaged in the process, and it was quite a difficult job to hang out on the stern and fix it while the waves kept washing you! Then I immediately contacted the team and discussed a repair of the oar rod. I finally fixed it in a similar way to the old bar, everything was a bit more difficult than last time because the break wasn't as smooth and the conditions were rough. I can't fix the damage to the rudder cassettes now, it has to be dry for that. My team technicians believe that it is not yet critical. But there is probably nothing left to save with the hydrogen generator.
Then I pulled the sword out as far as it could, but couldn't see any damage. The hull around the keel and sword area also looks intact from the inside. Of course I'm really annoyed that this happened again and that I lost so many miles, but I'm glad that the damage is not so bad and that I can continue. Losing the generator means for me that I have to save as much electricity as possible. Computer, satellite phone, GPS - I have to turn everything off as often as possible if I want to make it to the finish line.
And it sounds unbelievable, but on Monday night the autopilot alarm suddenly went off. When I got on deck, the rudder blade was up again, and the fuse broke again! Again something collided with the rudder blade, twice in less than a day! But everything is okay. I just hope that I won't lose touch with the top group because of these setbacks."
It didn't look like that this morning, Thomson is still in 5th place with his "Hugo Boss" and is currently fastest in the field with 19.5. Although he is 136 nautical miles behind the leading François Gabart, his closest rival, the Swiss Bernard Stamm ("Cheminées Poujoulat") is only 40 miles ahead of him, and Thomson's VMG is currently almost three knots higher.