Patrice Carpentier (VM Matériaux) has informed the race directors that his repair on the boom has not held.

This is what he had to say: “At 3 O’clock GMT on Sunday 2 January, my boom broke again. I was trying my best to continue on my route with hardly any wind and choppy seas. The sails were flapping around with the wave movement, when the boom went again. The little casing I put around it in Tasmania broke and the splint made of battens slipped out.

“So I’m back in the same situation as last week, but this time I don’t have any way of repairing this huge carbon tube and I can’t see how I’m going to go half way around the world without a mainsail. This prospect is really getting to me, because of all the efforts that have been made so far to continue the race in spite of the difficulties. It was tough, but I hoped I could manage it.”