Vendee Globe | dag 56

Le Cam recovering from his ordeal,
Desjoyeaux out in front.

1500 HRS GMT. Rankings, (FRA, unless stated)
1. Michel Desjoyeaux (Foncia) at 6312.5 miles to finish
2. Roland Jourdain (Veolia Environnement) at + 108.9 miles to leader
3. Armel Le Cléac’h (Brit Air) + 659.7 miles
4. Vincent Riou (PRB) + 742.5 miles
5. Sam Davies, GBR, (ROXY) at + 1860.4 miles

Selected International
7. Brian Thompson, GBR, (Bahrain Team Pindar) at + 2789.2 miles
10. Steve White, GBR, (Toe in the Water) at + 3925.7 miles
11. Rich Wilson, USA, (Great American III) at + 4862.5 miles
12. Norbert Sedlacek, AUT, (Nauticsport-Kapsch) at + 5939.9 miles

• Jean Le Cam spoke of his Cape Horn ordeal this morning alongside Vincent Riou who plucked him from the waters in a remarkable feat of seamanship. Riou’s orange hulled IMOCA Open 60 PRB, with her compromised rig, is making 10 knots this evening towards the entry to the Beagle Channel where a rendezvous with Isabelle Autissier (a former PRB skipper) is planned during which Le Cam should be taken off.
• Meantime at the front of the fleet, Michel Desjoyeaux is significantly quicker than his nearest rival, second placed Roland Jourdain.

His face crumpled from much needed sleep, Jean Le Cam spoke this morning by video-conference about his accident and being pulled from the waters off Cape Horn by his friend and Vendée Globe rival Vincent Riou.

The two skippers, supported by Armel Le Cléac’h, recounted the incident which paralysed the Vendée Globe and wider community while the skipper was inside the upturned VM Matériaux for more than 10 hours.

Le Cam was almost his back to his typical nonplussed self as he explained that he knew that had ‘only one bullet in the chamber’ – only one chance when he finally expelled himself out of the upturned hull. He explained that he had been on the phone to none other than Riou immediately before he hit something, what he said he believed to be possibly a container which caused him to lose the bulb off his keel and capsize.

Le Cam said his reflex actions were to recover warm clothes, his survival suit but was trapped near the front of his boat, the only dry area with an airspace, while the stern sections of the boat were under water, presenting a very difficult and potentially dangerous escape route. Le Cam said he worried about his reserves of air, particularly on the principle he would not leave the boat unless he knew there was help there.

Riou, who reached the spot at 14h21 on Tuesday had one major worry: he feared that Le Cam may not have had time to put on his survival suit and may have been already suffering from hypothermia, with the sea temperature down to 5 degrees. That is why they both seized the opportunity, which arose at around 1800hrs GMT. It was Le Cam who took the initiative, as soon as he realized that his friend was close at hand. After pushing out boxes that were in his way in the flooded stern compartment, then pushing out the emergency hatch, he waited for the stern of the boat to rise up on a wave, before squeezing his way out and clinging on to one of the rudders. “You know then that you have only one bullet in the chamber.” he said with hindsight. The rest of the story has already been told: it was on his fourth attempt (which was successful) that part of the outrigger on PRB broke threatening the rig. But the two skippers answered their reflexes and gybed immediately to take the strain off the rig. “The gybe of our lives.” Recounted Le Cam.

Jean Le Cam explained: “ First of all, I always had it in my head ‘do not leave the boat’, then I didn’t know how long I could live inside. I heard Vincent’s voice in the morning, and thought: ‘Am I dreaming or not? Then I heard it again so I was sure he was there, and that’s important, because if you get out and there’s no one there, you’re in a really bad shape, because possibly you can’t get back in. I mean there’s only one shot at this. So I went in the stern and it was immersed in water, I went back in my igloo in the front of the boat, and at one point, I thought let’s go back, it’s not because there’s water that I can’t give it a try, I had capsized once and had held on to the outside of the boat for five hours, you need to hold on to something. It’s like when you go buy bread you can’t forget your money. So I opened the hatch and things kept coming out of the boat, Vincent saw things come out of the hatch, and then I put my feet first, I got out in one movement with the wave, I held on, lifted my head up, and saw Vincent, which was a great moment.”

Vincent Riou: “I heard screams, I could hear his fear in his screams, I was afraid of the cold and hypothermia for him, the boat was slowly sinking, I didn’t know how he was inside, I was imagining that he could try and get out at some point, so we decided to take it in turns because I was afraid that he’d try to get out and there would be no one waiting there for him. It’s not easy for someone to get out like that, so we stayed close to the boat the whole time we waited, when I took my turn and I saw things coming out, I thought he’s doing something, I saw containers, then the hatch came out, and I knew immediately the boat was open and so I stayed close so as soon as Jean would come out I’d be there.”

“And then I came close a first time, I came close a second time and I missed him, and at the fourth try I managed to throw him the rope. The more I got closer the more I took risks, it could only take one bigger wave for Jean to be sent off, you can’t resist the pressure of the water, the fourth time I got really close, the hulls didn’t touch but the keel hit the outrigger, but at the time I really didn’t care, first I get jean then I’ll take care of my outrigger, my priority was set on getting jean no matter what.”

This afternoon at 1500hrs PRB was about 30 miles from passing Cape Horn making 10 knots towards the entrance to the Beagle Channel, at the south of Tierra del Feugo, where a rendezvous with Isabelle Autissier and her boat is planned. Riou meantime awaits the deliberations of the International Jury as to his situation with regard to his race. He is very keen to finish his race but he needs to be able to consolidate his rig further.

And for Armel le Cléac’h the first time rookie a whole bag of mixed emotions as he contemplated passing Cape Horn fro the first time, fresh from helping in the rescue of Le Cam.

Meantime Michel Desjoyeaux (Foncia) leads by over 108 miles, and was making nearly five knots quicker than second placed Roland Jourdain this afternoon.

Skippers update in English:

8th – Dee Caffari, Aviva (GBR): [Le Cam’s rescue] it’s fantastic news. It’s just such a horror story and then some great seamanship, it’s just so good and a big relief to everybody. It sends shivers down your spine. You look who’s around and have a look at the conditions and what’s ahead. It just makes you that much more vigilant again. I pretty much guarantee that everyone’s canted their keel and had a look at their bulb either over the side or with an endoscope since that news came out!

Apart from my not too good-looking mainsail the rest of the boat’s in good working order. We’ve just got to keep our fingers crossed with the main. Now I’m on the right gybe, so I shall probably when it’s daylight give it some more TLC because it’s just the last stretch now in the Southern Ocean and I believe the Southern Ocean’s going to give me a lot of wind just before I leave. Looking ahead to rounding the Horn — you’d kind of like to slip around the corner without anything too horrible but it kind of looks like it’s all going to arrive at the same time — obviously there’s time for that to change, but it’s inevitable they’ll be one last big blow in the Southern Ocean before I leave.

10th – Steve White, Toe in the Water (GBR):

It’s therapeutic really, I suppose that’s how you’ve got to look at it. It’s been fairly light all day and we’ve got 7-8 knots of breeze, so it’s not very exciting. The [pilot calibration] is done and it can come back now, it can be windy again please! The high’s just sitting over the top of me and getting bigger and bigger, and I’ve just to weave my way through to fight my way out of it. I’ve seen some struggling albatross – I think this is where albatross come on holiday because it’s quite warm and sunny but there’s not too much wind.

11th – Rich Wilson, Great American III (USA):

From the far side of the world, things are pretty good! We’ve just passed the New Zealand ice gate today, which is a rare milestone off the list. We have about 25 knots of wind and we’re making about 12.5 knots steady with staysail and three reefs in the main. There’s a great designer and builder of multihulls in the US called Walter Green and he used to say, ‘Make the easy miles’. We’ve certainly had plenty of hard miles in the Indian Ocean and today we’re making the easy miles.

So relieved to hear that Jean Le Cam was picked up by Vincent. It was a fantastic effort by Vincent, and by Jean also to get out of the boat and make himself available to be rescued. We were about 200 miles to the west of that location back in 1990 on a 60ft trimaran trying to break the San Francisco to Boston record. We got in a horrendous storm for three and a half days with 85 knots of wind and 20 metre seas was the official wave height. Finally the boat was rolled over upside down, and about an hour and a half later was actually re-righted by a wave, which as far as anybody knew is the first time that happened. I do know when a boat goes upside down that like everything goes dark and you can’t find anything — hopefully you can find a head light and not you’re hurt. It’s just a huge mess, you can’t imagine. You just don’t know what’s going to happen next and it’s very frightening. So it’s a really good outcome.