KEY POINTS:
With only 12 yachts left from the original 30, Roland Jourdain must have thought he was the next to be scuppered in the solo round-the-world yacht race, the Vendee Globe yesterday.
Jourdain, trailing race leader Michel Desjoyeaux by 168 nautical miles, hit a whale 800 miles off the
Argentine coast in the South Atlantic. The collision led to several cracks forcing Jourdain to continue under reduced sail while he made repairs.
Jourdain was woken by a violent shock, causing him to leap to ease off the sails. While he was getting his boat, Veolia Environnement, back on course after she had borne away off course suddenly, he noticed a patch of red around his boat.
He thought first had lost a sail, before realising that he had hit a whale, as he saw the animal swim away. After inspecting his boat, the keel and bulb were not affected but he found several cracks around the keel box and in the compartment at the foot of the mast bulkhead.
Despite making the repairs, Jourdain managed to gain 10 miles on Desjoyeaux as Foncia is on a more easterly course while Veolia Environnement is still managing to make in a more northerly direction.
The whale strike came soon after the dual drama which saw both Jean Le Cam and Vincent Riou having to be rescued together after Riou had rescued Le Cam. Le Cam was sailing to Ushuaia in southern Argentina aboard the yacht of fellow-Frenchman Vincent Riou, who rescued him after he was trapped in his upturned hull for 16 hours, when the mast snapped and the engine failed.
Chile's navy, which had abandoned an earlier rescue bid for Le Cam after he clambered aboard Riou's yacht, sent a vessel overnight to rescue the two yachtsmen.
"The yacht which rescued the original yachtsman was sailing to Ushuaia when the mast broke. There was also a problem with the motor," a navy spokeswoman said. "It had nothing to do with [Le Cam's] original accident. What irony."
Both arrived safe and well in Puerto Williams on Friday, with the second stricken yacht in tow.
Le Cam had been calling his shore team in France to inform them he was experiencing serious problems when the conversation was interrupted.
He then triggered a distress beacon and was not seen or heard of for a number hours.
His boat, VM Matériaux capsized in heavy seas, and he relived the moment when he realised rescue was at hand. Le Cam said: "I heard Vincent's voice in the morning, and thought am I dreaming or not? Then I heard it again so I was sure he was there, and that's important, because if you get out and there's no one, you're in a really bad shape because possibly you can't get back in, I mean there's only one shot at this.
"So I went in the back, it was immersed in water, I went back in my igloo in the front of the boat, and at one point, I thought let's go back, it's not because there's water that I can't give it a try, I had capsized once and had held on the outside of the boat for five hours, you need to hold on to something, it's like when you go buy bread you can't forget your money.
"So I opened the hatch," he added, "and Vincent saw things come out of the hatch, and then I put my feet first, I got out in one movement with the wave, I held on and saw Vincent, which was a great moment."
Even then the rescue was not complete, as Riou, who had diverted course in his boat, PRB, had to make four attempts to get Le Cam in his vessel.
Riou recalled: "I could hear his fear in his screams, I was afraid of the cold and hypothermia for him, the boat was slowly sinking.
"It's not easy for someone to get out like that, so we stayed close to the boat the whole time we waited, when I took my turn and I saw things coming out, I thought he's doing something, I saw containers, then the hatch came out, and I knew immediately the boat was open and so I stayed close so as soon as Jean would come out I'd be there.
"And then I came close a first time, I came close a second time and I missed him, it could only take one bigger wave for Jean to be sent off, you can't resist the pressure of the water, the fourth time I got really close, the hulls didn't touch but the keel hit the outrigger, but at the time I really didn't care, first I get Jean, my priority was set on getting Jean no matter what."
Last night Desjoyeaux pulled back to 176 miles ahead of Jourdain about 5500 miles from the finish.