HUGO BOSS Emerges

Open 60 News, Les Sables d’Olonne

This morning Alex Thomson’s Open 60 Hugo Boss left the build shed, where over the last 13 days she has been the subject of an intense repair operation following her being rammed by French trawler.

A team of nearly 30, comprising specialist engineers, boat builders, riggers and mast builders have completed the repairs to her mast which was broken in two by the impact of the collision, and the giant hole in her carbon fibre hull and deck. Together they have worked more than 1000 man hours to ensure that the boat has been repaired as perfectly as possible given the tight time frame.

Thomson returned from a short break at home in England to be reunited with his repaired Open 60: “It is a pretty unbelievable the job the guys have done,” he stated. “You really could never tell what the boat and the rig have been through at all.  To think the state we were in only last Thursday, it is just amazing, but the guys have a

ll done a fantastic job. Now for me it is a case of getting my head back into race mode. I have been home for a few days and really just tried to chill out as much as I could, literally sleeping as much as I could. Now I am sure that as soon as I get back on the boat and get some sailing then I will be right back into it.

“The really difficult bit for me as skipper and owner, is the legal aspect and dealing with that, because you really have to look after it, and after all we are the victim in this.”

Jason Carrington, who project managed Hugo Boss’ construction originally had been flown in fro

m Malta to help with the repairs. He confirmed that while Thomson had been

exceptionally unlucky to have had the accident, there have been many elements of good luck which have lined up in their favour since: “The damage to the boat

perhaps looked worse than it was, but if the collision had been half a metre further back it probably would not have been possible to fix the boat, it would have hit the chainplates, the struct

ure which holds the standing rigging of the mast. So now the boat looks like it did before.”

“It will be strong, but it is a repair and the hull is a little heavier than it was before, as for the mast, we were very lucky because Southern Spars was making a mast from the same mould, and they were able to cut a section from the end - they made it too long - and so there was a section which was nearly ready for us.”
Thomson added that the new standing rigging, plus approximately 2 kilometres of running rigging has been replaced too. “It would probably be impossible to do what we have done in this time, anywhere else in the world. But, because it is Les Sables d’Olonne, because everyone has the passion of the Vendée Globe, everybody has made it possible,” Thomson concluded.

Over the course of today Hugo Boss has been lifted back on to her keel and her rig restepped. On Saturday morning she will return to the water in preparation for a week of sea trials prior to the start of the Vendee Globe on 9 November.

Follow Alex at www.alexthomsonracing.com

Images courtesy of Mark Lloyd www.lloydimages.com