Around-the-World Sailboat Race : Broken Fitting on Its Mast Causes South African Yacht to Lose Lead

A broken fitting has altered the lineup of the BOC Challenge single-handed sailboat race around the world.

The stainless steel fitting holding a running backstay to the mast of South Africa’s Tuna Marine let go and the boat dropped almost immediately from first to fourth place as the leaders moved deep into the southern Pacific. In this race there are no mid-ocean pit stops for repairs.

A sailboat has two running backstays--cables. They support the mast in off-the-wind and downwind conditions. Normally only one is used at a time--depending on whether the boat is sailing on the port or starboard tack.

With one running backstay gone, Skipper John Martin doesn’t dare sail on the tack with the missing stay without first drastically reducing sail. To do so with the huge rig on his 60-foot cutter would mean almost certain dismasting.

Martin reported by radio that he has gone up the mast a number of times trying to make repairs but has been unsuccessful.

As Tuna Marine faltered, three Frenchmen were quick to move ahead of him.

In first place was Jean Yves Terlain, 42, aboard UAP Pour Medecins San Frontieres, which means, For Doctors Without Frontiers, a French medical charity.

At more than 57 degrees south latitude, UAP was already farther south than Cape Horn, the distant mark of the course the fleet is speeding toward.

But Terlain is probably the most anxious man in the fleet. He can’t rest. Close on his stern are Titouan Lamazou on Ecureuil d’Aquitaine and overall elapsed-time leader Philippe Jeantot aboard Credit Agricole III. The leaders are clustered in a 100-mile diameter circle.

All three leaders have averaged more than 200 miles a day since the fleet left Sydney, Australia, for Rio de Janeiro Jan. 18.

Tuna Marine, winner of the first leg, from here to Cape Town, South Africa--has dropped 220 miles behind the lead boat.

In Class 2--boats to 50 feet--America’s Mike Plant overtook the early class leader, Let’s Go, of France, and moved to first in class and fifth overall. Plant’s Airco Distributor has been averaging a respectable 7.76 knots since leaving Sydney.

Newly naturalized American Guy Bernardin, aboard Biscuits Lu, so far has chosen a conservative course, sailing at 50 degrees south latitude. He is almost 400 miles behind the leader. The southernmost boats will sail a shorter distance than those farther north.

Hal Roth, aboard the 50-foot ultra-light American Flag, was the only skipper to sail through the Cook Strait between the north and south islands of New Zealand. The move put him farther east in longitude than most of his Class 2 competitors but gave him small advantage in actual distance to go.

By going south, the leaders avoided a windless high pressure cell that stalled the boats farther north.

Fog, ice and intermittent gales will be the lot of the racers as they head for Cape Horn.

The skippers remember the wild conditions encountered in the Indian Ocean. There were knockdowns, roll-overs and frequent equipment failures. In the lore of circumnavigations there is a theory--never proven--that a bad Indian Ocean passage presages a good Pacific crossing.

Superstition aside, all of the solo sailors are haunted by the memory of their comrade, Jacques de Roux, who was lost overboard near the end of the second leg.

This week, race headquarters here received an urgent ship-to-shore call from John Hughes, of Halifax, Canada, aboard Joseph Young, at 40 feet, the smallest boat in the race.

Hughes reported that American Mark Schrader on Lone Star had failed to come up on two inter-boat radio schedules. It turned out that Schrader was fine. He had slept through the schedules.

Everyone concerned remembered that missed radio schedules were the first indications that De Roux was missing.