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Now at the bottom of the ocean: Kevin Escoffier’s yacht broke up 800 nautical miles south of Cape Town on Monday.
Image: Imago
In the Vendée Globe, the sailors are left alone for weeks and, in an emergency, they help each other. This camaraderie has now saved the life of Frenchman Kevin Escoffier.
AOn a life raft, rough seas, waves up to five meters high, spray. The water under the French skipper Kevin Escoffier: ten degrees cold. Without a tracking device and incomplete safety equipment, you are adrift in the Southern Ocean. Like all the sailors of the Vendée Globe, he is alone, especially at this time, not so much in others. Sometimes the bosses see their competitors go by and may greet them. But in the extreme case, they are hundreds of nautical miles apart.
“Now I’m realizing what happened,” Frenchman Escoffier said Tuesday afternoon on the live broadcast. “I still have the image of my mistake in my head pointing upwards. It’s like a nightmare. All the water that came in is still hard to believe for me ”. He had to deliver his ship on Monday at 2:46 pm (CET). Before that, he was able to send a message: “I need help. I’m sinking. It’s not a joke, ”he said. “The boat was full in four seconds. Then came a wave from behind, the water destroyed most of the electronics. I had time to leave a message, then I had to leave. It was total madness, ”he describes the situation in a video shortly after his rescue.
