One of Team Oracle yachts returns to its Auckland base after breaking its mast. Photo / Greg Bowker
One of Team Oracle yachts returns to its Auckland base after breaking its mast. Photo / Greg Bowker
KEY POINTS:
Chris Dickson's America's Cup syndicate found a costly weakness in a race rig yesterday when a mast top broke during training in the Hauraki Gulf.
USA71, one of BMW Oracle Racing's 2003 generation yachts, damaged the top of its 34m mast while training in 15 knots of breeze.
No one on board was hurt and the damaged rig remained intact as the yacht was towed back to the team's base at the Viaduct. A mast and rigging cost around $750,000.
USA71 was racing downwind during an in-house training session when the top of the rig collapsed. The race rig was not one of the syndicate's innovative jumper-less rigs.
It was being removed last night for inspection. Dickson, who was on the syndicate's new boat USA98 at the time, said the incident was unfortunate but they had been pushing the boats hard.
"That's why we are here," said Dickson, who is the syndicate's chief executive and skipper.
"We would rather learn the lesson now than during the Louis Vuitton Cup when this sort of mishap could cost us a race.
"This was a race rig so we are disappointed, as the piece that broke should not have broken, but we are pleased we discovered this weak link now during our race training."
During the last America's Cup, especially in the build-up months, a number of teams broke masts on the Hauraki Gulf.
So far, the only reported mast breaking in Valencia was the German team's last year.
Most of the big teams will build three to six rigs for a campaign, each of which takes about three months to construct.
It is not the first time that Dickson has run into trouble in his home waters. In 2001 he was at the helm of Oracle's USA49 when it broke its keel and capsized.
A year earlier he was at the helm of USA61 when it also broke its keel and toppled over.
The American syndicate, set up by software billionaire Larry Ellison, plans to continue training with USA71 and USA98 today. The team is training in Auckland until next Friday. They then head to Valencia, Spain, for the start of the challenger series on April 16.
