Skip to content

Container vs. Lakota

The notch taken out of Lakota’s starboard ama should be easily repairable. But we can only imagine what would have happened if she’d been traveling at the record-setting speeds that she is capable of.

© Frank Nitte

No one knows exactly how many shipping containers are unintentionally cast adrift each year — but estimates are shocking. Latitude‘s ‘man in Panama’, Frank Nitte, reports that the famous 60-ft trimaran Lakota, formerly owned by the late adventurer Steve Fossett, collided with a container recently while off the coast of Ecuador, roughly 350 miles southwest of Balboa, Panama.

Luckily, she was motoring at only five or six knots at the time, so damage to her starboard ama was not substantial. She’s currently being repaired at the Balboa YC, just south of the Pacific entrance to the Panama Canal. The multihull’s new owner was en route to Hawaii when the collision occurred. 

Fossett bought the speedy tri in the early 1990s from French sailing phenom Florence Arthaud. He broke the Japan-to-San Francisco record (with crew) in 1995, then set a new singlehanded record on the same route the following year. In 1998 Fossett set a new solo TransPac record (SF to Kauaii) with a time of 7d, 22h, 38m — a full day faster than the previous record, clocked by Peter Hogg in 1994 aboard Aotea.

Leave a Comment