KEY POINTS:
An attempt will be made today to salvage a racing triamaran that capsized about 80 nautical miles off the Otago coast yesterday.
Ten French sailors, who were taking part in the Jules Verne Round the World Yacht Race when their craft overturned, were rescued uninjured, and are staying
in Dunedin.
Three rescue helicopters winched the crew off the hull of the Groupama III about 3.30pm.
The Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand launched a rescue mission after its equivalent in France called at 1.20pm (NZ time) to report it had picked up a signal from the yacht's emergency position indicating radio beacon (Epirb).
RCCNZ mission coordinator Keith Allen said the incident highlighted the value of people carrying this variety of Epirb, which had greatly assisted in the rescue.
The French consul in Dunedin, Christiane Leurquin, said last night the 10 men were in good spirits and optimistic of salvaging the boat.
Groupama III had lost one of its three hulls, and was floating upside down about 80 nautical miles east of Dunedin.
Tidal conditions were such it was anticipated the yacht would be as far as 120 nautical miles out by today, and the crew wanted to make a salvage attempt as soon as possible.
Ms Leurquin said the men were happy to be safely on dry land.
"They're in good spirits. They're just happy to be all alive.
"They're tough guys you know, most of them have already gone through a shipwreck."
She said the men had received "great help" from the rescue teams and the police, and had been given dry clothes and a place to stay.
The only items they had saved from the boat had been their cameras and their cellphones, she said.
Groupama III, a futuristic-looking single-masted trimaran skippered by Frenchman Franck Cammas, left the English Channel on its bid for the Jules Verne Trophy 24 days ago.
The trimaran is 32m long, with a beam of 22.55m.
The record for the round-world race, inspired by Verne's classic Around the World in Eighty Days tale of Phileas Fogg and Jean Passepartout, is 50 days 16 hours 20 minutes and four seconds, held by fellow Frenchman Bruno Peyron in his Orange 2 maxi-catamaran since 2005.
Before his departure, Cammas told the Daily Sail website he had a good team around him.
"Of course there is a little apprehension mixed in with the excitement," he said.
"When you head off into the unknown, there is always a form of stress that accompanies you, but without the unknown there is no adventure.
"And adventure is something we love; it is our passion."
But immediately after overturning, Cammas, told his shore team:
"We have just capsized.
"The windward float broke in two, causing the two arms to break and then the boat went over on its side.
"The crew is safe and inside the central hull. No one is hurt.
"There are five to seven metre waves and 25 to 30 knots of wind. The sea is breaking and nobody can go outside."
Cammas later told journalists that the hull beams initially sheared and then the whole port hull broke away.
Viewed from the air during the rescue, the trimaran consisted of just two hulls with the port hull nowhere to be seen.
The Groupama III had just passed the half-way point in the circumnavigation, and was heading for Cape Horn after a relatively slow passage across the southern India Ocean.
But yesterday it altered course to pass closer to Stewart Island and escape some of the effects of a severe weather system developing in the Southern Ocean.
- NZPA
