“Mayday! The boat is cut in half”

A full-bore collision mid-English Channel left a Class 40 smashed in half and its two skippers clinging to wreckage. Helen Fretter gets the full story for Yachting World:

Thirty-one Class 40s started the CIC Normandy Channel Race on Sunday, May 25, one of the first big races of the season. It had been a tough test from the outset, with 25 knots and a building forecast. By Tuesday there had been several retirements, including a collision between two boats on the start, a dismasting, and gear failures. But the Class40 is one of the most competitive fleets around – entries included Vendée Globe legends Michel Desjoyeaux and Vincent Riou, such is the level of experience.

The double-handed pairings had rounded the Isle of Wight, and were zigzagging their way across the English Channel and its tough tidal races. Jay Thompson, an American who has spent much of the last decade in France working with big IMOCA teams, was racing #Empowher with Irish co-skipper Pamela Lee. He recalls: “It was quite a hard race. We’d had 25-35 knots of upwind, basically the entire race. So everyone was really tired.” – Full report