When you hear the sound of cracking carbon fibre on a Volvo 70, your heart always jumps a beat. Your mind begins to race with a diagnostic process that absorbs all the elements of the situation surrounding the noise. Where it came from, what speed the boat is doing, the sea state, where the stack is etc… Then you move onto looking for any obvious signs of what could have caused the noise; water pouring into the bilge, fragmented bits of material strewn about or even just people freaking out looking at something.

Last night we heard this distinct sound. A few of us jumped from our bunks looking for where it could have come from, we knew it was forward of the galley bulkhead, but past that we were unsure. Eventually we were led to the issue by Justin Slattery who was on deck at the time of the cracking and knew exactly what had happened. When lifting our starboard dagger board, the crane system that is designed to lift the board using a series of internal turning blocks, had failed with a violent snapping sound. The bottom turning block had torn away from the post, and had now rendered the system useless. Without the use of this board, our speed would be severely compromised. A halyard was then quickly attached in place of the broken post and movement of the board was regained.

Now it’s just a matter of fixing it. The halyard will work for the time being, but there is nothing like the real thing. The bits of the system were all removed and brought to the galley where there is ample light to work. Wade ‘Bubs’ Morgan is going to fix the post, but only if the pieces are salvageable enough to re-use. He began gluing this morning and should be finished by the middle of the tonight. If it’s not going to work, the team will have to discuss alternatives to the problem. Until then, the crew continues to push Azzam just as hard as always and remains focused on the surrounding competition.