By SUZANNE McFADDEN
Two more solo round-the-world sailors have called into New Zealand to fix their ailing boats.
Former leader of the Vendee Globe race Yves Parlier was almost shipwrecked on Stewart Island when he went in to rebuild his snapped mast.
Italian Simone Bianchetti arrived at nearby Doughboy Bay yesterday to make
repairs to his rig.
Almost a fortnight ago, Frenchman Thierry Dubois made a pit-stop in Bluff, after the power on his boat blacked out.
Unlike Parlier, the latest skippers to stop in will not get outside help, so they can continue in the race.
Parlier, who astounded fellow competitors when he decided to carry on with a broken mast, almost came to grief again on Wednesday.
When he arrived in North Arm Bay, he built a crude raft out of jerricans and made flippers from plastic lids to go in search of rocks to weigh down his boat's mooring.
But when the wind changed and his anchor dragged, Acquitaine Innovations ended up aground on the sand.
Parlier had to use his raft to tow the 18m yacht off the sand bank. Under race rules, he was not allowed to step on land.
"The one plus point is that I caught 10 mango-sized mussels for my dinner," he said.
The Frenchman has made an extension for his broken mast and plans to put it up this weekend.
Bianchetti heard about Parlier's mooring troubles, and pulled into a more easterly bay on the island to fix a damaged spreader.
Well ahead of the dramas, race leader Michel Desjoyeaux has rounded Cape Horn - the final landmark in the Vendee Globe.
Desjoyeaux, on PRB, has a 600-mile lead on the next skipper, Englishwoman Ellen MacArthur, which equates to two days' sailing.
Meanwhile, New Zealand skipper Grant Dalton has crossed the Equator first on board Club Med in the battle of the giant catamarans in The Race - but only just.
American Cam Lewis and Team Adventure closed the gap in the Doldrums, and were only 37 miles behind yesterday.
Dalton put it even closer - he reckoned that on the course the boats have to sail, there is just four miles between the two sister yachts.
Both are now out of the Doldrums and picking up speed again riding the south-east trade winds.
