Sailing: MacArthur in pursuit of extra pace after repairs

After two days of enforced slower speeds as Kingfisher 2's crew repaired damage sustained when the yacht struck a submerged object on Tuesday night, Ellen MacArthur was yesterday heading south in search of stronger winds in her attempt to set a new round-the-world record in the Jules Verne Trophy.

While it was still not clear what the boat had hit, it was discovered, to the crew's surprise that the starboard daggerboard had been damaged by the collision. "It became clear we had lost half the daggerboard and we were all pretty surprised to think we had not realised that it had gone," MacArthur said.

The main function of a daggerboard is to optimise upwind performance. Its damaged state is not a problem with the boat now in the Southern Ocean, but would make the upwind part of the course, back up the Atlantic after rounding Cape Horn, more difficult.

The boat was slowed for six hours as repairs to the four-metre-high daggerboard, which weighs 700kg, were made. It took eight of the 14 crew on Kingfisher 2 to lift the board out and cut away the damaged shards of carbon, filling holes and adding a pad eye to the damaged end before returning the board upside down to its casing. There was no other damage to the daggerboard casing and repairs to the rudder fixings damaged on Tuesday were also made. Following the repairs, MacArthur reported Kingfisher 2 was was once again sailing at 100 per cent.

Kingfisher 2 is now heading south to find more wind as the last two days have been relatively easy in terms of Southern Ocean conditions: "Conditions right now are just magnificent – sun, nice breeze, blue skies," MacArthur said.

"We are just sailing south past Marion Island, doing about 16 knots of boat speed – a bit slower than earlier today – but we are sailing downwind in really beautiful conditions.

"We have no choice now but to go south perhaps as far as 51 south, but we may have to come back north a bit tomorrow night or the next day when the next low tracks in at 49 south from the west. At the moment, all the routing shows we should pass south of the Kerguelen Islands, but we are still too far away to say for sure."