That's not good...

"GROUPAMA lost their rudder after colliding with Groupe Edmond de Rothschild on day 2 at Cowes.
With no control the crew had to jump overboard before the boat crashed into the wall. Luckily all crew escaped unhurt."

Wow!!!
Gives new meaning to SLAM racing gear.

http://www.extremesailingseries.com/news/view/french-rivals-collide-groupama-crew-leap-to-safety/

How can a sloop without rudders be out of control? Is a X40 so unbalanced that it cannot trimmed to have lee or weather helm?

With 20+ knot winds and probably similar boatspeeds combined with racing very close inshore an accidant will get nasty very very quickly.

Here's the video! WOW!!!


Impact happens at around 0:06
Them watch them all jump ship when they know its FUBAR'ed.

That hurts. Glad they bailed in time but man if that was my boat I would cry.

Odd they did not dump the jib to make them head up.

That is SICK!!!

Scooby, I thought the same thing , but it is just a matter of seconds. Even if they had I'm not sure it would have spun up in time.

Everyhting is happening very quickly, its only like 25 seconds between the crash and the boat hitting the breakwater.

Simon: Checkout 0:13, they did dump the jib but because the sheets are probably in a loop there is no way they could dump it completely.

They where also heading downwind which IMHO would make it pretty much impossible to round up, its like stopping a runaway train.
Maybe the only thing that could have saved them was a HUGE knife.
Just glad that nobody got hurt, had someone been standing where that bowsprit hit I'm not sure how it would have ended...

It'll be interesting to hear how the protest/redress pans out.

That's one tough m'fn boat!

I'm surprised there is as little damage as there is, from what I understand that boat is back racing today after fixing it up during the night.
My guess is that the boards took most of the impact.

Looks like the tourists bailed out of the campervan too!

Can they furl the jib?

I tell you what, I'm super impressed that the mast didn't come down or snap when it hit pavement.

That whole scene reminded me of when Derek came screaming in at Nag's Head in front of a big nasty black cloud. He hit the beach and then some, getting up to an erosion wall of sand. He smacked it and the boat stopped, the mast kept going.

Impressive build quality Marstrom.

looking at the aftermath - I don't think the bows hit. I think the daggerboards took the whole impact.

My money is on the breakwater to win the protest..

Having seen the video only, it looks like Groupama jibed too late from the opposite tack and Gitana tried to avoid contact, so there should be no protest, at least from Groupama.

I'm not sure that's what I'm seeing. I see Groupama headed downwind, on starboard, behind at least two other boats on the same line. Toward the end of that video, we see more footage of the incident and we see the bows Group Edmond de Rothchild coming in and she appears to be very nearly close hauled. Group Edmond de Rothchild then bares away and hits Groupama. I can't figure out why Group Edmond de Rothchild was in a position that she needed to bear away INTO Groupama. I can't figure out why these two would have met on the course with two wildly different angles of starboard sail where Group Edmond de Rothchild would need to bare away. I think, based on some sketchy details, Groupama is going to win on a time and opportunity argument. Group Edmond could have easily cleared by holding their higher course.

Chaps;

Looking at the video; they have just rounded the windward mark (Groupama’s Gennicker is up but furled; Rothchild are goisting theirs); Groupama has borne off hard and is following the same line as the boats in front. Rothchild did not bear off so quickly, or maybe a more gentle arc (notice on Rothchild that the gennicker is being hoisted as the collision occurs) and they took the rudders off Groupama. Looks like Rochchild are going faster; go behind the black/green/blue boat and then try and dive for the gap to leeward of Groupama and do not make it; I’d say Rothchild get binned in the protest room.

From what I can tell from the video I think Group Rothchild is in violation of Rule 12 (on the same tack, not overlapped) and Rule 14 (avoiding contact).

It looks like it happened right after rounding the top mark and Group Rothchild just went way too wide (they had to duck Ecover).
They then tried to squeeze in between Ecover and Groupama by doing a 90 degrees turn(!) but couldn't because of the high winds (just watch the spray coming of their rudders!).
I dont see how Groupama carries any blame here, IMHO should have been a DSQ for Group Rothchild (although maybe they did a penalty turn later?).

I do not think that a turn would exonerate you with that much boat damage.

Here is the same incident but from a different angle, the audio is in French but maybe someone can translate? (The only word I get is 'jury').
http://www.voilesetvoiliers.com/cou...eme-40-groupama-40-cammas-guichard-cowes

Franck Cammas, what happened in race 11?
"At a windward mark, as we were bearing away, Edmond de Rothschild Group, who were going behind us and finding it hard to bear away, hit our rudders in not such a violent manner. The two rudders and their mounts came away. All of a sudden Groupama 40 was uncontrollable and unable to be steered. She was heading straight for the sea wall. It was impossible to switch direction without the rudders. The crew was forced to jump into the water and Groupama 40 ploughed into the wall, her progress slightly slowed by the daggerboards as they rubbed up along the pebbles. The damage could have been a lot worse!"

Yep, with the damage inflicted upon Groupama, they should have withdrawn. I don't see where groupama is at fault. Rothchild was overtaking anyway you slice it.

Just checked the results and they both have a DNF for race 11.

What I don't understand is how one 'tap' could dislodge both rudders. One or the other, yes, but both of them at once? How are those things hooked on? It looked to me like they hit the tiller crossbar anyway, not either rudder, but somehow that lifted both rudders up and off the pintles? I'll bet they have a better lock on system already installed!

Apparently they sheared both rudder mounts off the transom. If they hit the one rudder and it got hooked on their bow as it came off, the force from the crossbar on the other rudder would be large. That was a pretty big hit judging by the reaction of the boats.

I'm not sure how Groupama gets penalized in that situation.

there sure is a lot of power sliding around out there...

Someone needs to invent a way to put the brakes on a cat

Kind of like putting a parachute on a bicycle in case it goes over a cliff that is high enough to have time to deploy it?