Dramatic rescue details emerge

Followers of racing will be aware that Swiss sailor Bernard Stamm and French crewmate Damien Guillou were rescued 170 miles south west of the Scilly Isles just before Christmas as Stamm's IMOCA 60 race yacht ' Cheminees Poujoulat', sank.

The yacht had been broken in two by a huge wave during a storm force 10 gale and the pair were finally rescued after a number of attempts involving British and French rescue organisations.

Behind the scenes

That's a lot more than anyone outside the yachting world would know as few newspaper or TV news reports even named the pair. But, thanks to an interview with Stamm reported by Yachting World's Elaine Bunting, the story behind those brief reports can be told, and it's a frightening read.
Stamm and Guillou were on the last leg of a trip home from Brazil having competed in the Transat Jacques Verbe. They were well aware that the infamous 'Storm Dirk' was on the way but they were just on the edge of the continental shelf, which exacerbated its effects. They had battened everything down and were desperately trying to keep their speed down, but the boat was "broken in two just behind the daggerboards" by a massive wave.

Helicopter rescue

This was only the start of a very long night. They triggered their EPIRB at 18:50 on Dec 23rd but were at the very extreme end of the range of a Royal Navy rescue helicopter from the UK. A French aircraft found the yacht and guided the helicopter in but after a number of attempts to lift the crew from the boat, or direct from the sea failed, it had to turn back.
During those attempts Stamm and Guillou had entered the water a number of times but eventually had to return to the boat, a difficult and dangerous thing in its own right. With one damaged liferaft and a second trapped in an inaccessible sail locker, things were looking grim. The French plane dropped another five, but none were near enough for the pair to reach.

Cargo ship

In the meantime a Norwegian cargo ship, the Star Isfjord had been diverted by UK coastguards to assist, but when it arrived that was far from the end of the drama. It took two hours of repeated attempts to get the sailors on board.
On one attempt they were nearly crushed by the cargo ship against the remains of the nearly-submerged yacht. Eventually they had to abandon the yacht and swim out to the cargo ship as it stood off. Guillou managed to reach a buoy dropped by the ship and transfer to a boarding net but Stamm had to swim for his life, a distance he reckons to be some 80m, in the worst seas imaginable.
"It was really super stressful", Stamm told Yachting World, "because there was a really big sea and by that time Cheminées Poujoulat was almost entirely under water. There was only one small part of the transom sticking up and the bow hanging by the stays. This is a really hard picture for me."