Francesca Clapcich: Route du Rhum Day 5 Report
During her fifth night at sea in the Route du Rhum, Francesca experienced a serious setback when the bowsprit on 11th Hour Racing broke as the boat was reaching at speed at a position about 450 nautical miles west of Horta in the Azores.
Francesca, who has spent much of the night sorting the boat out, is exhausted but not injured in any way and is determined to continue her race, albeit at slower speeds.
The bowsprit failure came as 11th Hour Racing was holding third position in rough conditions behind runaway leader Corentin Horeau (MACSF) and Boris Herrmann (Malizia 4) in second place. Francesca was continuing to hold her own and was battling a resurgent Sam Goodchild (MACIF Santé Prévoyance), who has now overtaken her, with 11th Hour Racing currently in fourth place.
The setback for the Italian-American skipper came on the same night as her Italian compatriot, Ambrogio Beccaria (Allagrande MAPEI) injured his back in a fall in his cockpit. Bogi has been forced to retire from the race and is heading to the Azores for treatment.
The bowsprit on 11th Hour Racing gave way after Francesca had been wrestling with the J0 sail, which fell into the water and wrapped on the J2 forestay while being deployed in the darkness. Speaking before the bowsprit gave way, an exhausted Francesca described what happened.
“I started to deploy the sail - it started to unfold but then it dropped and in the drop it started to wrap on the forestay of the J2 - so it’s a whole mess. I was able to get the sail down somehow, but the halyard is still caught up on the J2. I’m destroyed - it’s such a mess,” she said.
It was after recovering the J0 that Francesca was setting her Fractional Code Zero sail when the bowsprit broke. Pictures from onboard show it had sheared off at the stem. “The entire bowsprit structure exploded,” explained Francesca. “So I don’t have a bowsprit anymore.”
Francesca is clearly bitterly disappointed to have to slow down and lose race positions after such a promising start to her first Route du Rhum. But she is determined to finish the race as competitively as possible, and this morning 11th Hour Racing had 1,780 miles to sail to the finish at Pointe-à-Pitre, and was making 14 knots of boatspeed under J3 and mainsail.