{"id":9263,"date":"2014-12-03T21:09:09","date_gmt":"2014-12-04T02:09:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/?p=9263"},"modified":"2014-12-03T21:09:09","modified_gmt":"2014-12-04T02:09:09","slug":"team-veastas-ashore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/?p=9263","title":{"rendered":"TEAM VEASTAS ASHORE"},"content":{"rendered":"
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\u00a0Team Vestas Wind’s nine ship-wrecked men finally made it back to civilisation today, telling of their amazing escape from a collision with\u00a0an Indian Ocean reef which grounded their boat<\/a>.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The unshaven, exhausted, uninjured team were holed up, incommunicado, for three days in the remote archipelago after their boat ran into the reef on Saturday afternoon at 1510 UTC.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m really disappointed of course,\u201d said Chris Nicholson, their 45-year-old skipper from Australia, shortly after arriving at dockside in Mauritius.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the other hand, we have to realise how fortunate we are for everyone to be here in one piece, and to be healthy. It\u2019s pretty amazing, so there\u2019s a lot of emotions at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Marc Bow\/Volvo Ocean Race<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cThe past four days have been very challenging for all of us, and I am extremely proud of the whole crew\u2019s professionalism, composure, and endurance.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s clear that human error is responsible for the shipwreck, there\u2019s no avoiding that. And as skipper, I take ultimate responsibility.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

They had smashed into the coral rock at 19 knots \u2013 the equivalent of 35 kilometres an hour \u2013 in their 65-foot boat, spun 180 degrees and crashed to a halt, grounded on the reef.<\/p>\n

They remained on the reef until the small hours of the following morning, before abandoning the boat in pitch darkness and wading in knee-deep water to a dry position on the reef, led by Nicholson – aka Nico.<\/p>\n

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Marc Bow\/Volvo Ocean Race<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

A small boat from the local coastguard then took them early on Sunday to a small islet, \u00cdle du Sud, which is known as a favourite with shark-watching holiday-makers.<\/p>\n

Their blue vessel, caught underneath breaking waves, is badly damaged, but the crew decided to remain for an extra 24 hours to complete a clean-up operation around the area.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe bad things had to come off,\u201d said the skipper, having just stepped off the local fishing boat, \u2018The Eliza\u2019, that transported his crew back to the mainland.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a clear list of removing that equipment, and once we had all those off the boat it came down to removing things that were expensive.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve done a really good job in clearing it all up.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Marc Bow\/Volvo Ocean Race<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Experienced New Zealander sailor Rob Salthouse was also keen to focus on the positives.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just good to be back on dry land,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the team has grown strong with what we\u2019ve been through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Danish sailor Peter Wibroe, white shirt stained yellow by sand, sweat and sea salt, was full of admiration for his leader.<\/p>\n

\u201cI must say that the team worked really well together, especially Nico, the skipper, who led the whole situation in a very professional way.<\/p>\n

He continues. \u201cWe all felt extremely safe despite the situation.<\/p>\n

“We were conscious about what was going on and we all had our responsibilities.”\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe worked really well as a team, and that\u2019s why we\u2019re all here today.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Marc Bow\/Volvo Ocean Race<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0Team Vestas Wind’s nine ship-wrecked men finally made it back to civilisation today, telling of their amazing escape from a collision with\u00a0an Indian Ocean reef which grounded their boat. The unshaven, exhausted, uninjured team were holed up, incommunicado, for three days in the remote archipelago after their boat ran into the reef on Saturday afternoon … Continue reading TEAM VEASTAS ASHORE<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2179,2160,898,333,1609],"tags":[2413,2180],"class_list":["post-9263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chris-nicholson-volvo-ocean-race","category-safety-at-sea-offshore-sailing","category-seamanship","category-volvo-ocean-race","category-volvo-ocean-racing","tag-safety-at-sea","tag-team-vestas-ashore"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9263"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9263\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9264,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9263\/revisions\/9264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}