Following the rescue of Yann Elies just before Christmas after he suffered a broken leg and ribs whilst racing in the Vendee Globe his boat was left with some sail up to continue monitored but unmanned in the southern ocean until the Generali race team could get a salvage crew onboard to sail the boat back to its home berth. Sadly the race directors noticed that the positioning beacon stopped transmitting on 23rd December and that the COSPAS SARSAT distress beacon had been triggered. I’m gussing, but as the boat was unmanned the logical way for the distress beacon to have triggered is for it to have been lifted out of its cradle by water, suggesting that the boat had taken on a lot of water in sea conditions which have been reported by other competitors in the area to be horendous. On Friday 26th December, the salvage crew whilst on route were told by the GENERALI shore team that the distress beacon had stopped transmitting. It was therefore no longer possible to identify the boat’s position. The weather conditions worsened (7-8m high waves and cross seas) and the team was forced to call off the search.
It’s not inevitable that the boat has sunk, the transmitter may have just used up all of its battery power, but it is possible that she’s lost to the depths of the southern ocean. Thankfully, Yann Elies was rescued in fairly good weather conditions and he’s not gone with his boat.
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