Two sailors are safe after heavy weather damaged the 68-foot Geraldton Western Australia raceboat, and injured the crew members. The vessel is competing in the Clipper Round The World Race. The wave came over the stern, knocking the crewman into the wheel, and sheering the pedestal. Conditions were gusting from 40 to 60 knots, with large waves. That’s the adventure they pay for, right?

CNN has more coverage:

After bad weather hindered earlier emergency efforts, two seriously injured sailors were safely on a boat off California’s coast Sunday evening — preparing to fly to San Francisco after their 67-foot racing yacht was damaged a day earlier by high seas, a Coast Guard official said.
Four members of the Geraldton Western Australia’s crew were injured Saturday in stormy weather as they sailed from China to San Francisco for a leg of what’s called the Clipper Round the World Race, race organizers said. The rest of the crew was described as “uninjured but shaken.”
Inclement conditions had hindered initial attempts to send a helicopter to the site, located about 270 miles west of San Francisco.
But by early Sunday evening, a rescue swimmer was in the water near the boat. Eventually, two of those hurt — identified by Coast Guard Fireman Jordan Akiyama as a 50-year-old woman and 67-year-old man — had been transferred to a small boat.

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The folks over at Sailing Anarchy have this report from an (obviously unbiased) Jboat dealer. He had a chance to take out the new J/70 in California. Still, if these numbers are accurate, it should be a fun ride.

I sailed on both boats last Thursday, invited along with the sailmakers and hardware guys to help evaluate sail sizes, rigging and set up for input to class rules. Pix herewith in no particular order.

Observations:

Wind was 10-12 then quickly built to 16 with a max of 18. I based the wind speed on the consensus of four professional sailors that were on board at the time. The boat cruises along nicely downwind in that breeze – between 12 and 14 knots of boat speed. I based that on my GPS which was in my pocket.

The boat feels very balanced with good bite on the helm. We were approaching the top end of the sails at 18 but both sets of upwind sails were made oversized and a little fuller than the boat wants, especially the jibs in my opinion. Once the sails get sorted, the boat will go upwind in 20+ very happily.
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We reached back deep into the archives for this one – a true pile-up at the leeward mark. Fantastic. The color commentary is great, as well. Sounds like they had a good time reviewing the film.