Yesterday Kevin Escoffier set off his alarm saying his boat was leaking. He then took to his Liferaft. Jean Le Cam was closest and diverted immediately, saw the liferaft, but then lost sight of it in the 5 metre high seas as darkness fell. Three other contestants diverted to assist in the search. The position of the LIferaft was being transmitted by a safety beacon Jean Le Cam was in contact with the race organisers by video and shortly after 0200 this morning suddenly disappeared from the screen and then reappeared with Kevin who was still wearing his survival suit. Very fine seamanship by Jean Le Cam and the race organisers, andrelief all round. In due course we will learn what went wrong with Kevin’s boat PRB, but almost inevitably, after Alex’s structural problems, there will need to be some thought given as to whether the search for lightness has been at the expense of necessary strength. The roaring forties can be a merciless place which is why it is such an interesting challenge.
Out on the race course Charlie Dalin still has a comfortable lead in Apivia of 200 miles over Linked Out. They were too far to the east to assist with the rescue of Escoffier. Sam Davis is 521 miles astern in 10th place
Alex is making his way towards Cape Town. 14 years ago when in the region south of the Cape of Good Hope, his swing keel broke loose in the Velux5Oceans race making his boat unmanageable. He was picked up by Mike Golding who was also in the race. Then Mike’s boat was dismasted but they reached Cape Town safely. So this is not an area of the Roaring Forties to be taken lightly.
I dropped in on his team yesterday, and subsequently Alex reported that he thought his rudder might have been damaged by striking some fishing gear. This is quite likely as the Korean boats just dump it. I caught a section around my keel in the Velux further east in 2006 and it took me 19 hours to clear it, involving a cold swim to put a line on the wire re-inforced rope so I could haul it aboard and cut it away with a hacksaw.
Someone asked me to make a comparison between my experience more than 50 years ago, and what these sailors are going through. Well the weather is the same, but the boats are so different it is like comparing the Wright Brothers with Concorde! These boats are averaging almost 5 times faster than I could make then. This means they can hang onto depressions for much longer whereas, at my average of just over 5 knots in the Roaring Forties, the depressions caught and rolled past me. I had 6 gales in 10 days whilst passing south of Cape Point. I could not outrun them.
The difference is important as if the wind is 40 knots and you are sailing at 20 Knots, the wind over the boat is more or less just 20 knots. If you are sailing at 5 knots, the wind over the deck is 35 knots. 25 years ago on Enza we were averaging 19 knots between the Cape of Good Hope and Australia, fantastic sailing, especially when we surfed down the waves reaching 28-30 knots of boat speed, but she was 92 feet long, not 32 feet like Suhaiii. It means you handle the waves very differently. And it is how you handle those waves that matters when they are so large. Suhaili would be swept by them, Enza just surfed. Recent research has shown waves of more than 80 feet in height in the Roaring Forties. The residual swell waves make up most of this, but the sea waves, created by the current wind, are the ones that create the problems, as 5 entrants in the recent Golden Globe race discovered when they were dismasted. When the crests of the residual waves and the sea waves coincide is when you get that very nasty really big threatening combination.
RKJ