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I think there was something else broken beside the rudder because he had do disconnect it to restore the control. Otherwise I imagine that fixing it (whatever was left of the rudder) in the upper position would be enough. And I think he would not gave up that easy just because continuing meant...

Actually only one degree of freedom. How the kick-up system has to work is not specified. Some key points from the rule book that prevents it to be used as horizontal stabilizer. 

Ok, lets assume that the keel bulb dug into soft whale meat while the bow was cutting into the next wave. Can one distinguish the difference if the boat is folding at the same time? I mean the speed and pitching rotation is absorbed by folding deformations and there is no loud bang that you are...

After reading Sam's report regarding damages I can't help thinking that Kevin hit something as well. Not an UFO like Sam. Rather a submerged object with the lower part of the keel. If you do it while flying it can crate quite a punishable pitching motion. I think they didn't consider that in...

Actually there was one modification in OD parts that was necessary for foilers - the engine coolling water goes through the keel fin now. So, you can't say that they are not evolving. ;)

Here is a lot of confusion around terms. To avoid the confusion we need to look at this in historic aspect: EPIRB - (Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon) are detected by GOSPAS-SARSAT (over 406MHz). Historically these didn't have GPS and the location was calculated by measuring...

I have some burning questions (like always while reading this kind of rescue stories) - what were the actual devices that proved to be useful or what could have been useful?  Was this really an EPIRB that gave up the position of the life-raft or it was actually a PLB attached to the...

The central longitudinal bulkhead with cutouts (beam as he said) is definitely quite thin but I am sure that it has thin aramid core in it. It would be too heavy to make that big structure without core. And I assume that this is the main reason why it failed (mostly on the left side) - it is too...

After a  second though over the watertight bulkhead - it might not suffer the same fate to the central one. Central has cutout areas from where these cracks started to develop. This is meant to stand longitudinal compression forces not perpendicular bending forces. But this transverse bulkhead...

No, the damaged longitudinal beam was on the right side, so it had to be on Port tack. These beams are located in the middle of the flat area. So when it does not support the area, the water pressure will flex the surface inward during slamming and will create a fold like dimple (together with...

These cracks in the central longitudinal bulkhead, that he presented as the damage, are only some stress cracks caused by the skin below moving to the right on each slamming bounce. I assume it happened over the long period and there is no such cracks on the right side of the central. But the...

The last generation IMOCAs are a lot more unstable without keel than previous generations were. At least HB and Charal that share the same hull design. This is because foils start to work so early that it is wise to optimize the hull to have less wet surface in displacement mode. This means...

A new virtual tour is added into hub: https://www.alexthomsonracing.com/the-hub/internal-360-tour/

These pictures and a lot more is available here: https://www.alexthomsonracing.com/the-hub/gallery/

Yes, I mean what he is wearing on top of the sunglasses. Garmin does not seem to be among official suppliers. So it must be a useful kit - he does not war it just for advertisement. 

I have no clue on what this claim is based on but I do hope so as well. At least Alex has confirmed that he'll be ready for TJV. So he either was mapping polars for such a case or he had spare foil waiting for it to happen. Another article is coming. Can anyone tell is Alex wearing a set of...

I understand that there is a limit longitudinally by the rules, but i meant further out from the center line. The beam is nowhere close to the limit in case of new foilers. I see that rudders can be easily developed into something else like daggerboards were developed into foils. The vertical...

This is more like long term measure that you cannot count on in case of sudden dynamic load. And at least with the broken foil you can limp to home. What they probably had to do today. 

The best fuse is the foil itself. Probably they calculate the braking load to be just under the rig RM limit. You can sail with missing foil but not without the rig.