An explosion at the Telefonica shore base on Monday evening (1 June) has left the team with a lot of extra work ahead of this Saturday’s leg eight start. According to shore manager Campbell Field, approximately 60,000 to 70,000 euros worth of damage was caused by the blast and subsequent fire in one of their containers – at 23:00 local time.

It is not yet known what caused the fire, but among the destroyed items were the two yachts’ radars, as well as some electronic equipment and the base’s kitchen.

“There was an explosion inside the container but we do not know what caused it,” Field said. “The fire trucks were here within minutes and put it out, but it has caused quite a lot of damage.”

“You could fit what was in that container into a small rubbish bin right now. Unfortunately there is a bunch of stuff which will be needed for the next leg, but we can source all of that no problem. We lost both of our radars, our electronic spares, our tool kits, a bunch of hard disks and a lot of data and spare computers. The whole container and everything in it, we are probably talking about 60,000 or 70,000 euros worth. It is significant.”

Field confirmed no one was present at the time of the explosion and now expects the lost equipment to be replaced by the middle of this week.

He added: “Thankfully, no one was down here at the time and no one got injured. We can get up and running pretty soon; we should be able to replace all of the items by Wednesday or Thursday. Judging by the bows in the side of the container and the fact it blew all six doors wide open I’d say it was a pretty big bang.”

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