‘The boat nosedived and its bow folded'

When Kevin Escoffier’s boat sank in the Southern Ocean within two minutes, he was rescued by fellow Vendée Globe competitor Jean le Cam. Pete Goss examines the expert seamanship involved

- Pete Goss

On 30 November, whilst sailing at 27 knots on starboard tack, disaster struck the IMOCA 60 PRB. A strong SW air stream behind a front had thrown up a large and confused sea state. Kevin Escoffier, lying in third place in the 2020 Vendée Globe Race, was 840 miles SW of Cape Town. ‘In four seconds the boat nosedived, the bow folded at 90°. I put my head down in the companionway. A wave was coming, I had time to send one text before the wave fried the electronics. It was completely crazy’.

THE NIGHTMARE UNFOLDS

The infrastructure and procedures that lie behind the rescue, supported by modern communications, are a marvel in their complexity. Escoffier had a couple of minutes to send a short message to his support team: ‘I need assistance, I am sinking, this is not a joke’. He donned his survival suit, which he never stows away, and made his way into the cockpit. Smoke from burning electronics followed him up to a quickly settling deck that was sluggish and unable to rise above the waves. He had been unable to access his grab bag in the rush of rising water below. He struggled to get to the liferaft at the stern of the boat which was by now underwater.