The Southern Ocean is Unforgiving

I haven't been following the Vendée Globe too closely this year, but something worth noting took place. Inside the Dramatic Rescue of a Sailor in the Grueling, Around-the-World Vendée Globe Race

To rescue someone lost in the Southern Ocean is a miracle.

The Vendée Globe is a singlehanded, non-stop, around-the-world race in which no outside assistance is allowed. Say it again. Alone. Around-the-world. Nonstop. No assistance.

On 30 November PRB skipper Kevin Escoffier's boat broke up and sank in the Southern Ocean about 850 miles SW of Cape Town. It may be summer in the Southern Hemisphere, but the water is still brutally cold. He barely had time to get into his survival suit and life raft.

Four other skippers in the race diverted to save him, though one had to retire from the race because of damage to his boat.

One of the most dramatic sea rescues ever in the Vendée Globe happened early yesterday morning when Kevin Escoffier, skipper of the abandoned racing yacht PRB, pulled himself from a life-raft and onto a competitor’s boat in 18-foot swells and howling winds in the Southern Ocean. Jean Le Cam, who had diverted his 60-foot yacht Yes We Cam! to search for Escoffier, had himself been rescued 12 years earlier in this nonstop, single-handed, around-the-world sailing race.

A video (in French with subtitles) lists the conditions as wave height (or troughs) as 4 to 5 meters. That means crest to trough is 8 to 10 meters. In 30 knots of wind. That is the Southern Ocean.

Escoffier was rescued, and the 3 remaining skippers were awarded time for their rescue efforts.

The Southern Ocean is a band of water that runs around Antarctica, south of South America, Africa and Australia. It is, mostly, an uninterrupted band of water. With no continents in the way to act as windbreak, the winds can be fierce. The Roaring 40s start at 40 degrees south. And then there are the Furious 50s, where Gale-force winds are common year-round. (That means tropical-storm-level winds approaching hurricane strength, but not associated with a tropical depression.) Dame Ellen MacArthur, who briefly held the record for the fastest, solo circumnavigation, noted that when you are in the Southern Ocean, the closest people may be the astronauts in the International Space Station.