They’ve made allowances for a second person on board before – but I’m struggling to remember who and what the detail was.

Let’s hope Escoffier is on another boat shortly. A scary time for him.

It was leCam

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/sport/2009/jan/07/sailor-alive-south-pacific

Mike Golding rescued Alex Thompson in the southern ocean during a previous round the world single handed race (5 Oceans 2006). MG Sailed back upwind around 100 miles in storm conditions to perform the rescue. that was a stage race rather than non stop and In the end they were dismasted with both aboard and had to retire.
Latest report seems that Kevin Escoffier has been spotted in a life raft but its now dark so hasn’t been recovered yet. Three other boats in or approaching the area to help. Has PRB sunk? General rule is you stay with the boat as long as you can.

Latest update says Le Cam saw Escoffier and spoke with him but then lost him manoeuvring. Must mean he has no VHF or EPIRB on the raft. Explains why others have been asked to assist. Severity has escalated significantly.

Must mean he has no VHF or EPIRB on the raft. Explains why others have been asked to assist. Severity has escalated significantly.

That’s not good and I hope you’ve drawn the wrong conclusion (in the nicest possible way). I wondered why they’d sent the others when le cam already seemed to have made contact. I guess an element of back up regardless. He’s either had a very rough ride in the raft (even by raft standards) or the boat went down bloody quick or both.

Fingers crossed that things are better in the morning.

https://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/news/20687/four-vendee-globe-skippers-are-in-the-zone-to-help-in-rescue-of-kevin-escoffier

You’ve probably seen this update but in case not

Rescued.
https://www.vendeeglobe.org/en/news/20690/news-flash-kevin-escoffier-rescued-by-fellow-vendee-globe-competitor-jean-le-cam

First words from Kevin:

It was like in those films whent a vessel goes down but then worse.

What happened in a handfull of seconds:
Planted the vessel and then stem folded 90 degrees.
Just had time to send an distress message.
Next wave hit and all electronics went dead.
Folding a vessel in two….
I have done some but this one….

No exagerating, really almost exact words in my best french english tranlation(small disclaimer rather fluent in both but neither is my mother tongue)

Seems like a bit more then some water ingress. To note this vessel had extensive damage a couple of months ago I believe.

Blimey.

Clean underwear for Monsieur Escoffier please.

What an epic event this is, shows the very best of humans. It does feel however that the margins for boats are just too fine and the organisers need to consider some more robust minimum durability standards.

It sounds like a similar failure to the one that started to occur on Hugo Boss. In the post rescue video Kevin Escoffier mentions that 200kg of carbon fibre reinforcing had been added to the boat before the race. They have sealed bulkheads to keep the boats afloat in the event of most situations, but breaking in half is catastrophic. It’s worth noting that PRB was not originally fitted with foils and these are a recent addition.

The big ocean races have always brought a degree of gear failure but the Vendée does seem to suffer more than (say) the Ocean Race in terms of boat fatal (rather than human fatal) incidents.

Having said that there must be some special challenges around designing a Vendee/short handed ocean racer – trying to keep weight down for ease of handling when you don’t have a crew to share the workload, the extra impact that not having a live helmsman at the wheel will have on the structure (I’m assuming autopilot systems don’t yet have AI to match the kind of processing a human does), 75-90 days without a layover, less hands to run daily maintenance and to and to fix/jury rig in event of gear failures are presumably all complications that need to feature in your design.

The people who design and build these things are very talented but like any elite sport they’re going to want to push the margins at least in some areas in the pursuit of victory.

A translated quote from Escoffier.

More detail on Sailing Anarchy.

…so I pulled the liferaft from under the water to put it on the deck of the cockpit, and when I was trying to secure it the boat heeled over, a wave broke over the deck and threw me in the water with the liferaft, so I didn’t have a choice in fact between staying on the boat and going in the water, so then I was in the water, I activated the liferaft, I had the grab bag I had managed to get a hold of on my back and a distress case I was keeping with me, that was inside the boat, up high, that’s how I had been able to recover it, and at that point I was in the water with all that, I managed to activate the liferaft and climb into it, ..

It seems he had a minute or two maximum. He had put on survival suit but couldn’t get to the middle life raft as it was 3m underwater. Suggestion the keel was attached to the rear section, dragging the boat down with mast upright.

Instead he grabbed his emergency bag from cockpit, then as he released the rear life raft he was forcibly washed overboard…from the water he activated the liferaft and climbed aboard.

That.
Was.
Close.

Amazing job by Jean le cam, finding him in the dark with many tacks and 5m seas. From what I could read escoffiers beacon didn’t work properly so they had to predict his position with drift models. I also read that it was a PRB boat that rescued Jean le cam in 2009! Plus ca change etc etc

trying to keep weight down for ease of handling when you don’t have a crew to share the workload

Hull weight makes very little/zero difference to the crew workload – but it makes a massive difference to how long it takes to get round the course!
Hence the boats are built down to a weight the designer thinks will make it.

Sodebo about to overtake Charal while running the Jules Vernes trophy – they’ll steam right past the whole fleet!

Edit – and now ARKEA PAPREC has hit a UFO, damaged a foil & is leaking.

At this rate there might not be much of a fleet to overtake!

The rate we’re going there will be a line of ‘old school’ boats leading at the end…

I did say at the beginning of this thread that getting the balance between speed and reliability is very important.
(Not that you can do much about a UFO but they’re working on a radar system that spots stuff up to 800m away)

(Not that you can do much about a UFO but they’re working on a radar system that spots stuff up to 800m away)

I thought a couple of the boats already have that system OSCAR. In some cases even using AI linked to the autopilot to take avoiding action automatically.

That truly sounds like a terrifying experience for M. Escoffier. The relief for both him and Le Cam when he pulled himself onto Le Cam’s boat must have been unbelievable.

I presume Kevin can’t help at all and just has to keep out of Jean’s way until he gets evacuated off the boat?

Now Sam Davies has hit floating object:-((. Heading north to assess the damage according to the report.
Another article on the Vendée site said that PRB would try and rendezvous with a French frigate to transfer Kevin Escoffier off. If that doesn’t happen then might be onboard until New Zealand.

I wonder if it will change the way he sails now…he’s not alone on his boat, so any risks he takes impact another person now.

I suspect the pair of them will be keen to sail fast, it’s how they are wired.

That’s tough for Sam too.

Pip was looking stressed on last night’s update to.

Pip Hare’s video updates are brilliant. She’s so genuine, she opens up all the emotions she is experiencing as well as sharing her thoughts on sailing the boat. With Alex now out she’s the most interesting to follow for me.

+1 on pip.

Check out Thomas’ folding boat (EDIT – IN 2016…)

I thought a couple of the boats already have that system OSCAR. In some cases even using AI linked to the autopilot to take avoiding action automatically.

Maybe, but the impression I got was that it was still in development. It’s tricky as containers tend to float just under the surface so you may be looking of a slightly different wave pattern – which is pretty difficult!
Oh, and whales – they surface without warning!!

I’m very confused…that’s from Linked Out? he says he’s motoring…to New Zealand, and it will take 2 days(!), but the tracker shows him sailing at 15 knts?

Ignore me, I’m a plum.
It came up on YouTube recommended. It’s from last race…

ooooooohhhh….now it makes sense! he’d need a bigger motor to get to NZ in 2 days 🙂

There must be a huge number of UFOs floating about, for 3 boats to hit them it’s either really unlucky or there are loads of them. They must have loads of near misses that they never know about

There are on average 1300 containers lost at sea each year with a large proportion still floating around the world’s oceans.
They are by far the biggest menace.

someone should develop something that makes containers sink if they detect they’re in the sea not on a boat 🙂

someone should develop something that makes containers sink if they detect they’re in the sea not on a boat 🙂

Something like a ‘hole’ so they fill up with water and sink perhaps. 😉 Unless the container is filled with rubber duck bath toys.

See Hugo Boss has reached Cape town and Arkea Paprec also retired as the damage to the foil case cant be repaired while at sea. Hoping Sam Davies can effect repairs but the interview with another team manager (from Linked Out) in yesterdays Vendee Live didn’t sound encouraging. Not sure I would want to enter the Southern Ocean with any questions regarding the strength of the keel and associated structures.

Something like a ‘hole’ so they fill up with water and sink perhaps.

Ridiculous…way too low tech

Ridiculous…way too low tech

Water level sensor added inside top of the container. If it fills to nearly full, self destruction is triggered.

I thought they should have a couple of sacrificial panels, once exposed to salt water the panels degrade and open, flooding the container and sinking it.

Either that or get some decent ratchet straps that wrap around the whole boat!

There are on average 1300 containers lost at sea each year with a large proportion still floating around the world’s oceans.

Nearly 1800 in one incident last week!

https://gcaptain.com/one-apus-arrives-in-kobe-revealing-cargo-loss-of-epic-proportions/

Sodebo pulling out of their Trophee Jules Verne attempt with rudder damage

Oh man. What a shame.
Although I think they were already dropping behind schedule?

They’d been as far as 700 miles ahead, were about level with IDEC when they slowed. Still, they’ll be back I suspect.