At 1510 UTC, Saturday, November 29, Team Vestas Wind informed Race Control that their boat was grounded on the Cargados Carajos Shoals, Mauritius, in the Indian Ocean. Fortunately, no one has been injured.
We are in contact with the boat to establish the extent of the damage and ensure the crew is given the support needed to enable it to deal with the situation.
The Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) in Reunion Island is aware of the problem.
The crew has informed us that it is currently grounded on a reef but nobody is injured. Volvo Ocean Race and Team Vestas Wind’s top priority is to make sure the crew is safe.
The crew has informed Race organisers that it now plans to abandon the boat as soon as possible after daybreak.
Team Alvimedica and two other vessels are in contact with Team Vestas Wind to assist.
We will give you more information as it becomes available.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/isobaric/1000hPa/orthographic=-309.78,-15.98,478
“We could see the boat clear as day,” recalls Team Alvimedica navigator, Will Oxley.
He's talking through last night's events with Race Director Jack Lloyd via LiveX technology, just after his team rejoined the race.
“In fact, it’s just a coral reef flat, and the little islands between us and Vestas were only about one metre high.”
As the thick black curtain of night fell, giving way to a brighter morning and a razor-sharp horizon, the crew of Alvimedica was greeted with an unfortunate sight.
The grounded boat of Team Vestas Wind, once tall and proud, now stranded and torn wide open by the sharp reef of the Cargados Carajos Shoals, near Mauritius.
A boat that they have so relentlessly battled over the last couple of months.
But most importantly, a boat containing nine friends, colleagues - and fellow sailors. Luckily, all uninjured by the incident.
“We were already pretty nervous,” Will admits. “We’d been talking about these reefs for some time, and I’d just been speaking to Amory.”
“I’d said to him ‘look, read this about that corner of the reef, it says you should never go there in any circumstances!’”
He pauses. “Not even 15 minutes later, we got the phone call.”
It was a call that they’ll never forget – a call from Race Control. And a request.
Could they divert their route to the remote archipelago to provide assistance?
Well, of course, according to Will. In fact, the race “became completely irrelevant for that 12 hours,” he says.
“We went around into the lagoon area, dropped our sails, and very nervously motored in using the sounder to get as close as we could,” he continues.
“We were then able to motor up and down, within handheld VHF range - we could see the flashing lights on the life raft, and they could see our mast light.”
“We were able to have a radio contact every 30 minutes, and we think that made a big difference to their night.”
With half a smile, he adds. “It was good to be able to maintain contact with people who are good friends - they knew that we had their backs.”
At around 0045 UTC this morning, the grounded crew was left with no choice - it was time to abandon the boat, and scramble to dry land.
“We were party every 30 minutes to the slow destruction of the boat, and it was terrible to hear what was happening,” sighs Will.
“Eventually, one by one, they made the transition from the boat to the life raft. They fired off a parachute flare to light up the whole area, and they were safe.”
And then – they headed to land. “At that point we got a VHF call from Nico who was obviously sounding pretty broken,” remembers Will.
“They were sorted, they had a plan, there was nothing we could do to help them anymore but they were incredibly appreciative of the role we’d played.”
“They wanted us not to disrupt our lives anymore, and they sent us on our way.”
At the most recent position report, Team Alvimedica sit sixth in the fleet, 196 nm behind leaders Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing.
But they are now well and truly back in race mode. As for Team Vestas Wind, the crew has been taken to the remote Íle du Sud, where there is a house and some facilities.
The boat? Well, once the sailors are organised and safe, the necessary arrangements will be made to inspect the damage more closely.
Fingers crossed that, soon, the blue boat will stand proud on the horizon again.
This graphic picture shows the stricken Team Vestas Wind lying in a reef in a remote Mauritius archipelago of St Brandon after being grounded there at the weekend.
The team and race organisers are now working out the best way to recover the Volvo Ocean 65 in the Indian Ocean.
Neil Cox, shore manager of the Danish team, said: “The photo paints a pretty graphic picture of what’s going on out there. The picture tells a 1,000 words.”
He said his focus was still the security of the nine members of the crew.
“We have still got nine guys sitting on what is basically a sand pit out in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
“They are still the priority. It’s a peace of mind to know they’re all safe and doing everything they can out there with the boat right now.”
Cox said that sail ropes, fluids, electronics and hardware had been taken off the boat.
The nine-strong crew abandoned ship in the early hours of Sunday morning after the collision at 19 knots at 1510 GMT the previous day and waded through knee-deep water to a dry position on the reef.
They were picked up from there at daylight by a coastguard rib and taken to the nearby Íle du Sud.
The islet has very little communications with the outside world and the crew are awaiting transportation back to Mauritius. This is expected to happen within the next 24 hours.
The National Coast Guard of the Maritime Rescue Co-operation Centre (MRCC) of Mauritius took the pictures as part of its usual operations after such an incident.
The crew have received food packages via an airdrop from a coastguard plane. It confirmed that all were uninjured in the collision.
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