Jonathan McKee who broke his mast while leading the second leg of the Mini Transat see previous news story here has finally arrived under jury rig at Recife in Brazil.

McKee’s mast came down while he was asleep last Friday. The V1 shroud failed, and the mast broke above the first (lowest) spreader. He constructed a jury rig and was able to keep sailing but only on one tack. His plan was to get to Salvador if the wind direction co-operated. But the winds headed so he made the choice to head into Recife.

On a report on McKee’s website this morning the news is that Jonathan sounded well and strong on the phone and, even though he is disappointed that he couldn’t finish and that this gear failure kept him from winning, he is proud of his performance. “Chalk it up to bad luck,” he said, “I have had so much good luck and been so blessed. This was just a random bad luck incident.”

What remains is to get a good meal, and a decent night’s sleep, then pack up the boat and get it to Salvador for shipping back to France.

Meanwhile Sam Manuard continues to lead the fleet and should arrive in Bahia later today. More news when we have it.