At 0900hrs (CET/0800hrs UTC/GMT) this morning Britons Sam Goodchild and Ned Collier-Wakefield on the British Class 40 Concise 2 reported to race direction of the Transat Jacques Vabre in Paris that they had suffered a hull delamination problem and are heading for the Azores.
The duo, 21 and 23 years old respectively, had just taken the overall lead in their class in the biennial race from Le Havre in France to Costa Rica having been in second place since the race started last Wednesday. « We are pretty devastated to say the least. It makes it worse that we had just taken the lead but on the other hand we leave the race course with our heads high in that we feel we have sailed a pretty good race and proven ourselves competitive. » said a bitterly disappointed Goodchild, on of Britain’s brightest ocean racing hopes for the future, who had just completed a year! at the Artemis Ocean Racing Academy after winning a hard fought selection for one funded place on the Figaro circuit in France.