Mid-ocean rescues for ARC/ARC+
One crew member died, two yachts were abandoned, and two made successful midatlantic rescues during this year’s ARC and ARC+ transatlantic rallies.
The first incident occurred six days into the ARC crossing, when a sailor aboard the X-yachts X43 Agecanonix was fatally injured on the night of 26/27 November. French sailor Max Delannoy, 73, is understood to have been struck by the boom.
On a Facebook page set up for those following Agecanonix’s crossing, family member Stéphanie Barrière reported: “Our dear Max was a victim of an accident last night, when he was just taking the helm for his night shift, the boom violently hit him in the head. Philippe, who was in the cockpit, was able to hold him back from falling into the water, but he died suddenly.”
The three-man all-french crew were sailing Agecanonix as part of the ARC IRC Racing Division. They had opted for a course to the north of the rhumb line route to Saint Lucia – a strategy that had seen Agecanonix move up to 1st place in Racing B division on 25 November.
A Mayday call was made from Agecanonix around 0000 on 26/27 November requesting a medical evacuation. Tragically, injured crew member Delannoy was declared dead before any outside help could be provided.
The 300m cruise ship PV Mein Schiff 1, diverted to evacuate skipper Philippe Anglade, who was also injured, his son Jean-philippe
Anglade and the body of Max Delannoy. The Agecanonix was abandoned.
A second yacht was abandoned on 1 December, after the five-man British crew of the Hanse 588 Charlotte Jane III was evacuated onto a fellow
ARC yacht after a catastrophic steering failure. A Hanse representative told Yachting World that the skipper reported they suffered a whale strike.
The crew were evacuated onto the Oyster 55 Magic Dragon, using Charlotte Jane’s liferaft, while yachts JK Sail and Polygala also remained on station in case further assistance was needed. Conditions were challenging, with winds gusting Force 7 and 4m swells. Recovery teams were later able to locate and salvage Charlotte Jane III and Agecanonix.
A third rescue took place as the ARC+ fleet approached Grenada. A dismasted 28ft French yacht, unconnected with the ARC, was spotted by the crew of Coco, a Fountaine Pajot Lucia 40, around 140 miles east of Grenada.
“It was tiny, beam-on, and rolling around in the swell,” skipper Alfie Moore told our sister magazine Practical Boat Owner in Grenada.
“At first we thought it was a fishing boat, but something was sticking out the back. When we got the binoculars out we realised it was the windex of a sailing boat, but there was no mast. There was a pole hanging over the side.”
As Coco approached the crew saw a man aboard the dismasted yacht waving a cloth. The crew tried to communicate with him by VHF, but got no response.
The French skipper put a fender on a line and drifted it towards Coco. The Coco crew told PBO that the minute the tow was attached, the French skipper fell to his knees in tears.
However, the tow proved extremely difficult. As night fell, conditions deteriorated to squalls gusting 40 knots with driving rain, and the small yacht was spinning sideways to the waves, with the tow rope snagging under the keel and snapping repeatedly.
The Coco crew told PBO that they notified the authorities of Grenada, Trinidad and Tobago, but it was only as they neared Grenada that a coastguard vessel was sent to assist, after Coco had been towing the yacht for 26 hours.
The dismasted skipper was then delivered onto a mooring buoy in St George, Grenada, where he quarantined, while Coco joined the ARC+ fleet in its new finish port of Port Louis Marina.