While belting along at 19 knots last week, the Volvo 60 Team Vestas Wind ran into the Cargados Carajos Shoals in the Indian Ocean, 430 km north east of Mauritius. Tearing the stern of the multi-million dollar boat to pieces and leaving the crew left stranded on the reef.

The reef which spans almost 200km2, frequently becomes completely exposed and even at high tide, some sections can be less than 1m deep. It’s charted, and even has a couple of little islands, the total of which has an area of 1.3km2. Total, that’s pretty small!

So these 9 guys were on the way from Cape Town to Abu Dhabi, the second stage of the nice leg Volvo Ocean Race, and in complete darkness, they hit the reef.

“It’s clear that human error is responsible for the shipwreck, there’s no avoiding that.” Says Skipper Chris Nicholson. “As the skipper, I take full responsibility. The past four days have been very challenging for all of us, and I am extremely proud of the whole crew’s professionalism, composure and endurance.”

The stern of the boat is completely smashed, in fact it’s completely gone (with the rudders) so there is no hope of getting it off the reef and sailing to safety.

The crew are forced to leave the yacht on the reef, and wade through the knee deep water to a dry patch of sand for the night. The next morning, they were picked up by a passing fishing boat, and told about the abundance or sharks and barracuda in the water they had just trekked through. Then after four days on the tiny island, requiring food to be dropped from an aircraft to feed the crew, a larger fishing boat arrived at the island with a group of tourists (who are there to go shark watching!), and the crew were taken back to Mauritius and flown home.

Believe it or not, the team is considering rejoining the race in February! Salvage efforts are underway to pick up what’s left of the multi-million yacht and return it for repair. For now, the Team Vestas Wind Volvo 60 is still out there, with the barracuda…

#News #Sailing #North #Deep #Fishing