The Ocean Race 2022-2023: Team Malizia crew member Will Harris completes gruelling mast repair
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Updated 02/03/2023 at 21:24 GMT
Will Harris led a remarkable fix to Team Malizia’s mast during the third leg of The Ocean Race 2022-2023 from Cape Town to Itajai. A 30cm crack at the top of the mast meant Malizia considered turning back to Cape Town according to team director Holly Cova. However, Harris’ efforts mean they are still in the leg, albeit long behind leaders Holcim-PRB.
Highlights: All the best action from Leg 3 of The Ocean Race 2022-23
Team Malizia were on the verge of having to turn back to Cape Town on another dramatic day at The Ocean Race but crew member Will Harris completed an incredible repair of the boat’s mast on Thursday night.
Following GUYOT environnement-Team Europe’s decision to suspend racing, Malizia nearly followed in their footsteps when a 30cm crack was noticed at the top of the mast.
One of the headsails was lost which may have caused the damage, although the team are not entirely sure.
Throughout Thursday, Harris was up and down the mast to repair it and the job was finally complete in the evening.
Skipper Boris Herrmann messaged the group called ‘Malizia at Sea’ stating: “Epic teamwork guys, thanks for all your support - now we can only cross our fingers and wait to see if it goes off well.
“Big respect to Will, it takes so much courage to be up there for so many hours in the dark with 3 metre sea state.”
The complicated fix involved laminating and grinding whilst at the top of a mast on a moving boat with a huge reliance on communication and strength in tricky conditions.
During the fix team director Holly Cova revealed Harris was exhausted but was confident a fix could be made, which proved to be the case.
“The mast is a very important part of the boat and if we lose that it's really game over,” said Cova. “So they [the team] took it very, very seriously and at one point were considering to turn around.
“Through all of yesterday, the tech team worked basically on a fix and at the moment that is what is happening so that's why they can't be here.
“It's really taking all of them working non-stop to try and fix this issue. Will was up the mast with a grinder, basically grinding away the surface of the damage.
“It takes almost 12 hours to do this and although there is no wind, the sea state is really bad. But we are pretty confident, if this goes well, we can continue and maybe in full race mode.”
As of 21:00 GMT on day five of the third leg, Malizia are 500 nautical miles behind leaders Holcim-PRB, with 11th Hour Racing Team in second.
Biotherm are fourth and GUYOT environnement-Team Europe are on their way back to Cape Town after they suspended racing earlier this week.
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