Disaster has struck again for Graham Dalton during his ill fated stay in Fortaleza, Brazil. Since arriving at 0930 UTC on the 14 March to fix the cassette which holds his port rudder after hitting a UFO in the middle of the night the kiwi skipper has been struck by blow after blow of misfortune, not to mention a debilitating sickness and an onboard robbery see yesterday’s yachtingworld.com news story here.

Today, was no exception as Graham Dalton rang Race Director, David Adams to inform him that during a boat test prior to re-joining the race he realised that the keel bulb was missing.

“I think my bulb has gone. It was blowing 8 knots and the boat fell over and I tried to cant the keel and I couldn’t see it. So I dived down, the visibility was exceedingly poor but I could see that the bulb has gone.”

Dalton has returned to the marina in Fortaleza, Brazil to re-assess the situation. Just when you think it couldn’t get it worse – today is a public holiday in the port and so Dalton will not be able to get things moving until at least tomorrow. He is currently looking at his options.