When the mast of Sill Plein Fruit came tumbling down less than an hour after the start of leg 4 of the EDS Atlantic Challenge, her dispirited crew were talking of arranging to have the Open 60 shipped back to France.

Today she is on the 500-mile passage from Norfolk to Boston under jury rig, with her boom as a mast and under sails lent by North. ‘Bilou’, Roland Jourdain said that the rig was being repaired in Charlotte and that they hoped to be able to step it next Tuesday and re-join the race on leg 5. That leg is due to start on 13 August so even if the repaired rig is stepped on time Sill will be a day behind the fleet.