Alex Thomson faces another setback

Alex Thomson’s race to get to the Vendee Globe start line, has emerged after three days of extensive sea trials of the repaired HUGO BOSS: a potential problem with the main halyard.

“Following the sea trials we were able to confirm that structurally HUGO BOSS is fine. The issue with the halyard only came to light after some time on the water sailing, and fortunately for us, we were able to get the boat out sailing in enough time to identify the issue.” Said Harry McGougan, Operations Manager HUGO BOSS

The alloy chaff plate within the HUGO BOSS mast, was corroded from the time the mast spent on the sea bed, following the collision. This corrosion was causing chaffing to the main halyard inside the mast. The difficulty for the team was they were unable to see the problem inside the mast – and the shore team divised an ingenious solution.

They used halyards covered in hard jackets, which were wound up and down under load with the aim to polish the chaff plates, and prevent the chaffing.

Continuously for 15 hours (throughout last night), the team devised a shift system to hoist the halyard up and down the mast, a total of 1800 times. This has effectively smoothed the corroded area.

This hoisiting represented 50% of the wear and tear the halyard would experience during the 26,000 miles around the world, and the team are happy with the results to the halyard during this polishing and testing.

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