Owner/Driver Hap Fauth back on shore with Tactician Terry Hutchinson and Boat Captain Peter Henderson
At 12 a.m. on Wednesday morning, Hap Fauth and the Bella Mente Racing Team had to retire from the RORC Caribbean 600 due to damages to their Maxi 72. The team, though disappointed is thankful that the entire crew is safe, and the boat moored in Falmouth Harbour. Going into the overnight, the team held the first place position in IRC Zero and CSA Overall and second in IRC Overall.
“We are not really sure what happened,” said Tactician Terry Hutchinson. “We were beating up to La Desirade, tacking up the shoreline, and we heard a loud ping from down below, from inside the boat. It was really rough and we didn’t think much of it because you occasionally do hear random noises from these kind of boats. We got around the corner, set the Mast Head Zero and we were off doing 26 knots with Adrian Stead on the helm, coming into Proteus who had got around us in the wind shadow of Guadeloupe. As we accelerated we could feel the fin pitching back and forth. It felt like the boat was going one-way and the fin another; that is speculation but it didn’t feel right. It felt very unnatural, so we slowed down. Moose (Mike Sanderson) said: ‘Did everybody feel that?’ We tried to arc it back up again and the motion was very noticeable; it felt like the fin was going to drop out of the boat. The correct thing to do at that point was stop and high-tail it for Antigua. It’s frustrating because throughout the race we had always kept ourselves in the hunt and we always knew that if we were in the hunt at that quarter, we could finish the race well, so it is frustrating. Up until then it had been an awesome race.”
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