KEY POINTS:
One man is lost, presumed drowned, and another seriously injured after a collision between the biodiesel-powered New Zealand trimaran Earthrace and a Guatemalan fishing boat.
Earthrace captain Pete Bethune, of Auckland, said from a Navy compound in San Jose, Guatamala, the injured and missing sailors were from the
fishing boat.
"My crew are okay. However, we are encountering hostilities from the local people," he said.
"We've struggled getting any assistance from the locals here," he said.
The crew of the $3 million trimaran searched for the missing sailor for hours, and made repeated calls for assistance, Mr Bethune said.
However, it was not until they called the US embassy that Guatamalan coastguard and navy ships came and picked up the severely injured man.
The collision happened last night (NZT). Ten hours after the crash, Mr Bethune received word the man injured man had made it to hospital.
"It had taken a long, long time since the accident occurred for the guy to get to hospital. It's been frustrating," Mr Bethune said.
The vessel's crew were currently confined to the ship, docked in Puerto Quetzal.
"We are awaiting the portmaster to come down and commence his investigation," he said.
"At the moment we are being instructed to remain inside the vessel. We are waiting for all the necessary paperwork and clearance and we will decide what we will do from there."
After the crash, the ship was running on the single engine at about 800rpm. The Earthrace could now only reach a maximum of six knots, he said.
The biodiesel-fuelled vessel is attempting to beat the record set by British boat Cable & Wireless in 1998, when that diesel-powered craft circumnavigated the earth, travelling 24,382 nautical miles in just under 75 days.
The Earthrace crew aimed to smash this record by completing the voyage in less than 65 days, making it the first time a world powerboat record was held by a vessel using renewable fuel.
The high seas collision is the latest setback the Earthrace crew have encountered.
Two weeks before Christmas, the crew was told a small bio-diesel company in southern Utah would no longer be able to supply Earthrace with biofuel for the race -- a sponsorship loss which also destroyed its arrangements for shipping fuel to each of a dozen port stops.
Travelling to the Barbados start-point, the ship was shot at and boarded by a group claiming to be the Colombian Navy.
Their initial departure date from Barbados on March 6 was held up until March 10, while the crew waited for a delivery of fuel.
Then, 16 hours after leaving port, the Earthrace's hi-tech carbon-fibre propellers began disintegrating .
The Earthracers found new propellers, made of a more conventional bronze alloy, in a workshop in New Orleans. However, the replacement props were accidentally couriered to Colombia.
Following the propeller incident, Mr Bethune jokingly attributed the rash of bad luck to a bunch of bananas brought on board by a sponsor -- according to old seafarers bananas give off ethylene gas causing other fruit to ripen fast and rot.
On Saturday, the ship was down to one engine after running into problems with gaskets, oil cooler cover and an oil cooler heat exchanger.
Mr Bethune and his crew used epoxy resin to seal the cracks and try to stop an oil leak, mid-voyage off the coast of Mexico.
Mr Bethune said he remortaged his house three times and borrowed nearly a million dollars to finance the record bid.
- NZPA
