British soldiers sailing around the world have turned back east of the Chathams and sailed for Wellington to make urgent repairs to their mast.
Army personnel on Challenger - including crew from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers fresh from fighting in Afghanistan - were 300 nautical miles beyond the Chathams when they found 3m of the mainsail mast track had been stripped off the mast near its top.
The yacht is one of three taking part in "Exercise Transglobe" as a training exercise for British military personnel - the others are Adventure (Royal Navy) and Discoverer (Royal Air Force).
Crews on the Southern Ocean leg left Auckland on February 6.
Challenger's skipper, Becky Walford, told the voyage organisers the part that had peeled away was "quite fundamental" as it held the mainsail to the mast.
The crew found the Discoverer was carrying a rivet gun and the Adventure was carrying rivets, and last weekend decided to try to make repairs in the Chathams, about halfway back to New Zealand.
"But with inspection of the Lonely Planet (guidebook) and some advice from the New Zealand Royal Navy we concluded that perhaps the Chathams was a nice place for a cruise or holiday, but not really the place to re-fuel and re-provision a 14-man yacht," she said.
Walford skippered Discoverer in the Sydney-Hobart Race after Christmas and won the Oggin Trophy presented to the first Armed Forces entry. She was the first female skipper to cross the finish line.
Her all-male crew on the 20m steel yacht included personnel recently returned from operations in Afghanistan, where they faced Taliban attacks.
A press officer for the regiment, Captain Dan Wright, said the voyage was viewed as a reward after an intensive tour of duty.
The other two boats have continued to Montevideo, in Uruguay.
