The Shosholoza mast story

As we all know by now, three days ago, the America's Cup team that stole Valencia's heart had an extremely unfortunate accident with its mast, compounding the already experienced problems before Louis Vuitton Acts 4 & 5. We wish them all the best and give you the story as told by South Africans:

Tuesday afternoon, during the South African America’s Cup-Team Shosholoza’s training run off the coast of Valencia, the RSA 83 yacht’s new mast broke. At a boat speed of 9 knots, the 35 metre long carbon-fibre mast broke approx. one metre above the mast heel. The new mast was finally mounted on Monday after Shosholoza had participated in the last acts 4 & 5 in Valencia with a new boat but a used replacement mast. No one was hurt in the accident and the hull didn’t suffer any major damage.

"America’s Cup rigs are designed for very specific purposes and the margins of safety are very tight. It is not uncommon for failures to happen due to operation outside of the design parameters, or due to minor flaws in design or construction” chief designer Jason Ker comments upon the incident.

Shosholoza was the first America’s Cup 2007 team to finish a yacht in accordance with the new AC rules (V5); the mast also being the first to be designed and built for the current America’s Cup. It was a one-piece mast, entirely made of carbon fibre. At the time of the accident, the mast tube would have been experiencing a compression load of approximately 55 tonnes.

“That’s the America’s Cup, pure and simple! Just as with Formula 1, the teams will always test out the bounds of technological feasibility to be faster than their peers,“ says Salvatore Sarno, Shosholoza’s Managing Director. “We continuously run the risk of failure, but if you just want to stick with the conventional or outdated and never chance anything you might just as well withdraw from the America’s Cup. We have made important experiences for the future. To be sure, we are not pleased about the accident but I’d rather have the mast breaking during one of our tests than later during one of the acts.“

For the next America’s Cup acts in Malmö (August 24th – September 3rd 2005) Team Shosholoza will fall back upon the mast bought from Team Alinghi, which had already been used for the last two acts in Valencia. For Malmö the competition sails will be recut to fit the spare mast. Simultaneously, a replacement mast will be constructed.

The average number of masts built by each team per America’s Cup team is 3 to 4. It is not uncommon for America’s Cup teams to break masts while pushing the limits of technology. In 2003, for example, the Team New Zealand’s mast even broke during the final match. Indeed and in the same year champion Alinghi also suffered the loss of a mast.

Be that as it may, we all are very keen on showing the world our endless motivation: Pushing and pulling forward - that is Shosholoza, the soul of sailing!