Leaderboard

That is one cool boat, just the sort of modern but practical design suited to NZ sailing.

I wouldn't say 'bit the dust' just yet. He's just got a slight welsh onion. If he can fix that up, he'll be fine. Tack over and keep it out of the water in the first instance. Its a fair way to go until the front falls off...

I think the damage done to Hugo Boss was the first stages of what happened to PRB. Maybe Kevin hadn't noticed the longitudinal in the forward compartment starting to fail? I would think everyone on the Hugo boss team would have been pretty worried about sending that boat into the southern Ocean with the structural damage it had already sustained so the rudder issue might have been a blessing and relief for them....

Could the same thing have happened to Alex Thomson if he had continued?

From all I have read, JLC did an amazing job of finding the raft. Sounds a bloody awful fold up and lucky escape.

more or less, I refer to them as cousin's rather than true sister ships. Mine (Comfort Zone) was to the original design but stretched and there is a second one off the same moulds that to my knowledge has never been launched, I believe still in a shed in Avondale. Interestingly quite a few of her drawings including the lines plan were drawn by Roger Hill in his role as Farr's chief draftsman. Alan Smith/Smith's boat yard Whangarei decided to build these for export to USA and had the Farr office tweak the design (removed the clipper bow, different interior, longer cockpit with LOA 13.