Kaboom...then a shower of carbon

Orange crewman Nick Moloney recounts his experience of yesterday's mast breakage

Nick at the helm with Bruno Peyron

At a time when we should be blasting south towards the Canaries with a 25 knot northerly behind us, Orange is now back at her builders, the Multiplast boatyard in Vannes, France following our disaster yesterday. The breakage has left us all feeling gutted.

Since our arrival Bruno [Peyron] has been in lengthy talks with designer Gilles Ollier and his team over what happened. Meanwhile we have been going hammer and tongs to get the mast out of the boat and repaired so that we can set off again.

Yesterday morning started like another day at the office. We all arrived at the boat, down at the Porte de Commerce in Brest as normal at 0630 in the morning. When I walked on board I remember thinking we were so ready to go. Everything was prepared and I was really motivated. Finally I was going to realise one of my life's ambitions - to race around the world non-stop. I had tried this just over a year ago when I was on board PlayStation for The Race, but on that occasion we had a number of problems with our sails and a broken daggerboard and Steve [Fossett] decided to abort.

Dawn came, the rain ceased and at 0800 we set off from the dock. As we went out through the mouth of the Rade de Brest and set about beating up the Chenal du Fort between Ushant and the French mainland, the wind was gusting from the north and gave us an idea of what we were going to get round the corner on the start line. Beating up this small channel was quite exciting on a boat this big and this fast.

As we slowly rounded the top of Ushant to get to the start line it was blowing 30 knots from the north - just the conditions we wanted. We had one reef in the mainsail and as we bore away we changed to the medium genniker.

Once we'd crossed the line we were sizzling along at 28 knots, but we were really comfortable. Bruno was at the helm calling the shots. There was nothing flapping and we weren't overpressed. We were around three minutes from having everyone settled down and back in the weather cockpit, ready to crank her up a bit more. I was flaking the halyard into the bin at the foot of the mast reckoning I wouldn't have to get it out again for four days.

Then we all heard this KABBOOOOMMM and carbon splinters started falling all around the mast and down inside of the mast [the centre of Orange's mast is hollow so a man can climb up inside it]. I knew it was the rig straight away. Yves [le Blevec] and I shot away from the mast, and the guys who had been down in the leeward cockpit raced across the trampoline under the boom in case the mast came down.

As the photographs show, the top 800mm of the mast had snapped off. It took us ages, probably 45 minutes to get the genniker down and we had to send someone up the mast to free the mainsail as the halyard was snagged, which wasn't ideal. Later, it was strange, most of us went to sleep. I think it was a reaction to the stress of what had happened, after having had all the adrenalin pumping at the start and then for the break to happen was a shock to each of our systems.

continued on page 2...

A wet ride for the Orange crew, prior to the mast breakage