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On this morning's Radio Vacations live to Race HQ, just five horus after being dismasted MIke Golding said: 

" The  main bulk of the weather system had gone through and I was in a quieter area after that had gone through and I was under staysail and double reefed main and once it went through I left the main and went for a reacher and I was very happy with that for two and a half or three hours and was quite stable for the conditions, and then all of a sudden I had 50 knots squall come through. I was below and did not see it. No sooner had I got my jacket on and was sort of half out on deck, than there was a bang and I just went back down below, because there was a lot of stuff flying around. And so I just waited for the noise to stop."

 How were the seas?

"It was quite big because during the night we had had 40-45 knots, and so it was quite a well developed sea, it is quite confused, not a nice sea at all. And so that was part of the problem that the boat was just rounding up in the seas. My immediate reaction to any sort of squall is to dial down on the pilot to take the pressure off. But this time the boat could not bear down there was just too much load on."

What was the scene on deck? 

"There was no mast, the sails were over the side of the boat. It was broken with a couple of breaks. Obviously there was a lot of load going on, a lot of loaded lines, cracking and banging of carbon and so you did not want to rush into it too quickly. We have a six or seven metres swell running, with waves on top of that so the motions are very violent and so the loads are very high, and such an unpredictable environment you don’t want to put yourself in anywhere where potentially you could get injured."

How long  to  clear the decks? 

"It was pretty quick, maybe 30 minutes to cut the rig clear."

"I am left with the boom and unfortunately I have lost all those sails. In those situations you have to get rid of the rig quickly, there is always a risk once the mast and the sails are in the water, they become very, very heavy quickly. The mast could easily punch a hole in the hull, there is no time to mess around trying to rescue bits of sail. I have the spinnaker staysail, various other sails, and so I will try to concoct a jury rig."

Plans? 

"I have not had a chance to look at it. Perth, Adelaide and Hobart are all equidistant. All about 1500 miles, I will have to have a race with Loïck!"

"I am gutted. (Silence). It is difficult to describe how I feel. Other than that things on board had been pretty good. And I was not doing anything different. If anything I was being pretty careful, putting the bow down keeping the pressure off the boat. I really don’t understand how I can be feted with such bad luck. (laughs)."

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