This was the moment ROCKWOOL DEN sustained significant damage by colliding with the Canadian team in the start box of the first fleet race.
The incident occurred just seconds before the race began, with the Danish seemingly unaware of the proximity of the Canadian F50.
The force of the collision resulted in Canada ricocheting off the Danish boat and hitting the Untied States by accident. The Danish received a painful penalty for the incident - an 8 point deduction to its event score and 4 point loss to its overall season score.
Speaking about the incident after racing, driver Nicolai Sehested admitted it was ‘our fault and our responsibility’, but said he was ‘frustrated’ the Canadian boat didn’t show up on ROCKWOOL DEN’s wing screen.
“Canada had issues with their telemetry and that’s why we didn’t really see them on our wing screen,” he said.
The Danish F50 sustained significant damage in the incident and was initially told they couldn’t race for the rest of the event.
“Luckily we got cleared less than a minute before,” Sehested said, ‘but it was a super hard boat to sail especially for Rasmus Kostner (flight controller) - keeping it steady was really really hard.”
The Danish managed to complete the day’s racing to finish the event in 9th overall, behind Australia in 10th.
