: Mickey Mouse engineering or faulty layup?
I followed this effort with interest mainly due to the design's claimed wave piercing ability. The ama failure was attributed to a faulty layup/cure. What actually caused the crew to abandon ship was a failure of the "pod" structure. The "pod," what you white men call the cabin, formed part of the structure that connected the amas. It failed where the horizonal deck joined the cabin in cove or fillet structure. According to a yacht designer not connected to the effort this is a pretty common structure and not one that is complex to design. For want of that a boat was lost. The boat's designer is a Brit who built his reputation with a series of high speed powered wave piercing cats built for the British military's special ops units.

The crew was rescued. It is believed that the boat broke up and sank, much to the relief of the owners who were looking at an estimated $4.0 salvage bill if the salvors got to her before she went down.

In the end the 105' cat Club Med took the Race after covering 27,000 miles in 67 days. Three other boats finished. One with major structural damage. While several participants were injured noone was lost. So I guess it was safer than weekend's jetskiing.

To keep this OT, I have been wondering if the wave piercing bow might improve the stability of a sea kayak by limiting the the lift of the mid-sections by wave action. This is one of the claimed advantages of the flexing exhibited by native craft.