" The diver is already on standby to inspect the damage before Gitana X is hauled out. The dagger board can be angled to improve upwind performance. To reduce the effect of turbulence in the daggerboard casing, lipped edges slip into a housing. The fitting has come unstuck and is gaping. The situation may worsen to the extent that the lips break requiring other components to be made. Repairs necessitate hauling the tri out and unstepping her mast. As the weather forecast is not good towards the end of the week, and we have a weather window this afternoon, sharply followed by a new low pressure zone and rotten weather thereafter, we opted to repair this afternoon. Otherwise we'd have been seriously set back in our programme, notably the first start of the ORMA Championship on 8th May.

We are really sad to have to withdraw from the SNSM Record but I will be in Saint Malo on Wednesday with the crew of Gitana X, present in Saint-Malo to thank all of the volunteers of the French lifeboat association, the Société Nationale de Sauvetage en Mer. »