[Source: Alex Thomson Racing] Alex Thomson yesterday faced his toughest challenge in the eight days of racing so far in this 2012/2013 Vendee Globe, when his hydro generator broke, in turn damaging the starboard tie bar of his rudder. The breakage happened at 1100 on Sat whilst travelling at close to 20 knots and he was unable to steer the boat causing HUGO BOSS to 'wipeout'. Explaining the breakage, Alex said: "I was low on battery juice so I popped the hydro down and went below to see how many amps were going in. At the time I was averaging about 18 knots and I heard a strange noise so went to the door and I could see the hydro vibrating very severely and getting worse. I realised it was going to break and rushed to pull it up but before I got there it ripped off the back of the boat and did a cartwheel and smashed the starboard tie bar. I was on port tack so the starboard rudder was not connected to anything and I knew instantly that the boat would wipe out. It did but I managed to get the boat flat and got downwind to roll up the A3 spinnaker keeping the port rudder in the water doing all the steering." Alex was forced to stop HUGO BOSS for an hour with big waves smashing into the back of the boat to enable him to change over the bars and get the starboard rudder steering