the times | Wednesday December 2 2020 2GM 3
News
Kevin Escoffier had time only to set off
his distress signal and send one text to
report that his yacht was breaking in
half before abandoning it in the South
Atlantic. “I am sinking. This is not a
joke,” the message read.
Then the French sailor, competing in
the Vendée Globe round-the-world
race, leapt into his liferaft in 5m (16ft)
waves and 25-knot winds and prayed he
would be rescued. It took another
11 hours before a fellow French sailor,
Jean Le Cam, could pluck him from
those perilous seas.
There is a book about solo round-
the-world sailing called A Voyage for
Madmen and the rescue of Escoffier is
another extraordinary chapter in the
history of an event in which half the
boats do not finish. Several sailors have
died attempting those 25,000 nautical
miles non-stop.
The drama began as Escoffier, 40,
was in third place in this year’s Vendée
after 21 days of racing, heading around
the Cape of Good Hope. The son of a
sailor from St Malo, he recounted how
his yacht, PRB, was suddenly, violently
broken up in heavy seas.
“It’s surreal what happened,” he said.
“In four seconds the boat nosedived.
The boat folded back on itself in a wave
at 27 knots. I heard a crack but honestly,
it didn’t take the noise to understand.
“The stern was underwater and the
bow pointed skyward. The boat broke
in two forward of the mast bulkhead. It
sort of fell back. I tell you, I’m not
exaggerating, there was a 90-degree
angle between the stern and the bow of
the boat.
“I put my head down in the cockpit, a
wave was coming and I had time to send
one text before the wave fried the elec-
tronics. I saw smoke, the electronics
burning. Within seconds, there was
water everywhere. It was completely
crazy. It folded the boat in two. I’ve seen
a lot but that one.. .”
Escoffier grabbed the nearest liferaft
at the back of the boat. “The front was
not accessible, it was already below the
water,” he said. “The water was in the
cockpit all the way to the door.
“I would have liked to have stayed a
little longer on board but I could see it
was going very fast. I went into the
water with the raft. At that time, I was
not at all reassured. You are
in a raft with 35 knots of
wind. No, that’s not
reassuring.”
Located about
600 nautical miles
southwest of Cape
Town, his best
hope of recovery
was from one of the
32 other competi-
tors left in the
Vendée. As the nearest
sailor, Le Cam, 61, was
requested by race organisers
and rescue services to head to PRB’s
last-known position.
He reached the right zone at about
4pm GMT, a little over two hours after
the PRB’s distress beacon went off. He
saw Escoffier’s raft but contact was lost
in the heavy seas and three other com-
petitors deviated from the race to assist
the search. “I was only reassured when
I saw Jean,” Escoffier said. “But the
problem was how to get on board with
him.
“We said two or three words to each
other. He was forced to
pull away a bit and then
after that I saw he was
staying in the zone. I
stayed in the raft until the
early hours of the morning. I
didn’t know if the weather was
going to ease enough to allow a man-
oeuvre.”
Escoffier had been adrift for more
than 11 hours by the time he could be
hauled on to Le Cam’s yacht, called Ye s
We Cam. “Finally, I managed to grab a
tube, a bar to get on board,” he said.
“There was still 3.5m sea and getting on
is a challenge in these conditions.
“Honestly, luckily I am in good physi-
cal shape because I assure you that it is
not easy. When I found myself on board
with Jean, we fell into each other’s arms.SOUTH
AFRICACape
To w nSOUTH
ATLANTICOCEAN
100 milesRace leader
Charlie DalinP
R
B
P
R
B
Jean
Le CamHOW IT
HAPPENED
1
2
Nov 30, 1.46pm
(GMT)
Kevin Escoffier, on
board PRB, is in
third place but
hits a wave at 27
knots (31mph)He sends a
mayday message
moments before
his yacht breaks
apartIn 5m (16ft)
waves Escoffier
leaps into a
liferaft stored at
the rear of the
boat4pm
Le Cam spots the
life raft but loses
contactKevin
Escoffier3
4
5
100 milesRace leader
Charlie DalinJean
Le Cambreaks
Kevin
EscoffierJean Le
Cam’s yacht
Yes We CamPRB
PRB
Imoca Monohull
Top speed 40 knots*
(46mph)
Length 18.28m
Beam 5.5m
Draught 4.5m
Mast height 29m
*approxYesterday 1.18am
As weather eases Le Cam,
61, manoeuvres his yacht
near the liferaft and pulls
Escoffier aboard‘It was crazy... the boat folded in two’
When a yacht in a
global challenge sank
in dramatic style, rivals
raced to the rescue.
Matt Dickinson reports
He said, “f***ing hell, you’re on
board! That was close!’ And I
said to him ‘I’ve f****d up your
race, you were having a great
race’. He replied, “It’s okay, the
last time I was the one who
messed up Vincent’s race.”
During the 2008-2009 Vend-
ée Globe, Vincent Riou, then
the skipper of PRB, rescued
Le Cam, at Cape Horn.
Reflecting on the rescue,
Escoffier said: “It’s still hard
for me to believe it, that I
broke a boat inside a wave at 90
degrees. I should have taken a picture
for people to believe me. I still have the
picture in my mind with the nose point-
ing up. It’s a bad dream.
“Between the moment when I wasout on deck trimming the
sails and when I found myself
in my survival suit, barely two
minutes had passed. It all hap-
pened extremely quickly.”
President Macron congrat-
ulated Escoffier and Le Cam in
a Skype call and tweeted last
night: “Yes we Cam! Bravo Jean
Le Cam.”
Le Cam and the other sailors
involved in the rescue —
Yannick Bestaven, Boris Herr-
mann and Sébastien Simon —
returned to the race after the
recovery, with the hours taken
deducted from their overall time.
For them the drama is not over: they
still have the Southern Ocean
to negotiate.90
o
sa
in
m p u a n Lin
Y
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re
d
F theRONAN HOUSSIN/PANORAMICYou are
sof
ot- he
rest
61 , was
organisers
theadtoPRB’s
o
pu
af
sta
stay
early h
ddddidn’t kn
going to ease
uvre”Jean Le Cam with Kevin Escoffier on
his yacht. Escoffier, also far left, was
hauled on board in 3.5m waves. “We
fell into each other’s arms,” he said.