While the sailing teams take a break and get fit again, the shore crews are working hard. Most had intended that Cochin would be a maintenance stopover, with the big jobs being done in Singapore, but the rough weather during the early part of the stage has forced several teams to rush the delivery of spares and to bring out extra manpower.
Both Telefonica boats broke a daggerboard. There was no clear sign of impact with anything, and the boards should have been operating at no more than 20% of their designed load at the time.
The Telefonica team had provided themselves with two spare daggerboards – one port, one starboard – to cover their two boats, but both boats broke their port boards. Luckily for them, the firm that built the boards built two more on their own initiative, so they were able to ship a second port board to Cochin.
Hopefully, the spares will clear customs in time. This is the kind of situation in which you need someone with an interest in the race who has influence in the right places – it’s pretty obvious that an Ocean 70 daggerboard has no market value once the fleet has departed, but jobsworths are everywhere
The thoroughness with which the Ericsson team have prepared their boats, and the skill with which their skippers have sailed them, is hammered home once again by the fact that their shore team has no other work than the expected maintenance and minor repair tasks. Well done.
