French America's Cup yacht struck by Greenpeace protesters

The French America's Cup yacht has been vandalised in Lorient. The hull of the Areva was damaged and the attack caused the cancellation of the boat's inaugural outing.

Areva, the nuclear power group, has aroused the wrath of Greenpeace and there had been peaceful but noisy demonstrations at the naming ceremony on Friday, but when it was due for its first outing, the demonstrators turned ugly.

A rigid-bottomed inflatable craft with four Greenpeace supporters on board was driven straight at the 80-foot carbon-fibre yacht while it was still moored and a one-foot-diameter hole punched in the side at the mid-section.

The Greenpeace craft had weaved its way through a cordon of police and support boats at the Breton port on Saturday to attack the yacht. Police questioned 11 people, all of whom they later released.

Areva, the result of 35,000 hours of design research and a six-month build at Multiplast yard in Vannes, will go to Auckland for the challenger elimination series. It is there, where some years ago the French secret service sank Greenpeace's Rainbow Warrior in the harbour, that demonstrations were expected

"Today we have been victims of a serious act of vandalism," said Luc Gellusseau, the Areva team's technical director.

However, Greenpeace's French chief Bruno Rebelle said the collision occurred when a boat belonging to the French team rammed the activists' boat, sending it crashing into the sleek lime-coloured yacht.

The Areva team design chief Philippe Pallu de la Barrière said repairs would add three or four kilograms to the boat's weight, a crucial element in top-level yacht racing.

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