The first delivered Ininiti 52 has been lost in the North Atlantic just months after its debut in the RORC Transatlantic Race.

According to Scuttlebutt Sailing News, Tulikettu suffered significant damage in a high-speed collision with an unknown object offshore in the early hours of Wednesday 20 April while sailing from Cascais in Portugal to the team base in Gosport, England.

All four members of the delivery crew were evacuated unharmed to an oil tanker that diverted to assist. A salvage operation to recover the vessel was unsuccessful, however, with the team calling off the search on Friday (29 April).

“We managed to sail almost 5,000 nautical miles aboard our magnificent yacht, which was long enough time to conclude that the new Infiniti 52 exceeded all our expectations for the performance of the boat,” team owner Arto Linnervuo said.

Tulikettu’s maiden offshore race was among the record-entry field for the 2022 RORC Transatlantic Race from Lanzarote to Grenada in January this year, as previously reported on Afloat.ie.

It was the first delivered example of the US-built, Hugh Welbourn-designed monohull, touted as the first foil-assisted high-performance yacht developed for semi-custom production. Sailing Scuttlebutt News has more on the story HERE.