and wind that the northerly ARC yachts encountered,
North Star had quite an easy time of it. But even on
textbook crossings, things happen that can hit home that
you are a long way from help and on your own.
For the crew of North Star, it was an SSB radio
conversation that relayed the information about a Polish
skipper who had fallen overboard from a yacht on
passage from the Canary Islands to Barbados (see page
19). The information they received was that the man had
fallen overboard during the night while trying to retrieve
a gennaker, and his wife was left on board alone unable to
sail the yacht. A search area had been defined, part of
which was along North Star’s projected track.
“From that moment, Marie and I had to be alert, to keep
a lookout and to the psychology of it. We needed to talk
about what we would do if we found him. We didn’t want
our children to see anything, so we agreed that we would
do two-hour watches and we explained to the kids what
would happen but excluded them from the watches,”
Kim explained.
It was very dark during those nights; the moon set
around midnight and the night watches were tense. As
they were leaving the search area at 0700 one morning,
Marie saw something floating in the water, a metre
squared piece of red fabric. It looked like part of the red
spinnaker they heard had been lost from the Polish
yacht. Kim noted the position and reported it to MRCC
Fort-de-France in Martinique.
Four hours later, the rescue centre called them back on
their satellite phone to get some more details and
used that to narrow the search area.
The mood on boat was sombre. “We had thought
Top: easy does it
downwind with a
poled out headsail
on Kim and Marie
Graven Nielsen’s
HR48, North Star
Above: cruising
accompanied
by dolphins
Right: visiting the
SOS Children’s
Village in Mindeloi
February 2018 43