The two-man crew of ocean-racing yacht Hugo Boss were planning to pull in to Wellington overnight to repair their rudder.
The crew, Briton Alex Thomson and Australian Andrew Cape, were yesterday headed for Cook Strait.
The leaders of the Barcelona World Race, the Franco-German pairing of Jean PierreDick and Damian Foxall in Paprec-Vibrac-2, passed Cook Strait on Tuesday.
Four of the nine 20m yachts in the new two-handed, nonstop round-the-world yacht race - which started in Spain on November 11 - have so far pulled out, three of them after being dismasted.
Thomson told the Times newspaper in London: "I know that the Barcelona World Race is meant to be nonstop, but we have had a few problems with the boat, which has meant a pitstop."
Last week the starboard rudder began to make an "awful creaking noise".
The yacht's two rudder blades are held in cassettes attached to the back of the boat, and the starboard rudder had worn loose.
"In 30 knots of wind I had to crawl into the steering compartment and cut open a hole in our aft water ballast tank to mend the attachment," Thomson said.
Thomson and Cape initially decided to stop in a sheltered bay, so they would not incur the 48-hour penalty that goes with an assisted stop.
The movement in the rudder was so great that during a gale a few days ago, it threw the boat into a crash turn that tipped it 90 degrees, with part of the mast lying in the water .
"This incident decided our course of action; we could not afford for this to happen again," Thomson said.
