{"id":9431,"date":"2014-12-23T02:51:04","date_gmt":"2014-12-23T07:51:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/?p=9431"},"modified":"2014-12-23T02:51:04","modified_gmt":"2014-12-23T07:51:04","slug":"higher-dryer-team-vestas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/?p=9431","title":{"rendered":"HIGHER AND DRYER, TEAM VESTAS"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Off the rocks<\/h1>\n

Text by Jonno Turner
\nPhotos by Shane Smart<\/span><\/div>\n

Shane Smart\/Volvo Ocean Race<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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<\/i>\u00a0MORE<\/span><\/a><\/i>\u00a022 DECEMBER 2014, 08:12 UTC<\/span><\/p>\n
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\u201cNico’s out over the other side of the reef now, giving it the once over, making sure there’s nothing left behind.\u201d<\/span>The Aussie voice crackling through the Inmarsat iSat phone is that of Team Vestas Wind shore manager, Neil \u2018Coxy\u2019 Cox.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m sitting here and the sun has just disappeared on the horizon,\u201d it continues.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the ship that we’ve just loaded on to is probably about seven or eight miles away from us now.”\u00a0<\/span>Incredibly, the Team Vestas Wind boat is off the rocks \u2013 damaged \u2013 but in one piece.<\/p>\n

Not bad for a boat which ran into the reef in St Brandon at 19 knots (35kph) and ended up grounded, high and not very dry, just over three weeks ago.<\/p>\n

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You can almost feel the trademark Coxy grin down the line as he recounts the events of a momentous few days\u2019 work.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were able to get the boat across the lagoon this morning on the high tides, and it went well enough that we could pull it straight out of the lagoon,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThen, we were able to bring a Maersk ship in, not even a mile away from where we were \u2013 it showed up at about 2pm this afternoon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe loaded the boat at about 5pm tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Three hours, 180 minutes. It seems like a pretty short amount of time \u2013 but it was a tense few moments for Neil, skipper Chris Nicholson (Nico), and the local workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spent the last three days getting this boat off this reef – it was beyond delicate,\u201d Coxy admits.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a pretty well-rehearsed method of picking these boats up \u2013 but everything that we would normally just set ourselves up for, we had to think about it, look if it was okay, and then acknowledge that certain things just weren’t.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to bounce slightly and re-invent the wheel, we just needed to be very careful and just make sure that we finished the job swiftly.\u201d<\/p>\n

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It was a job which was always going to be fraught with difficulty \u2013 but even more so after three days of working around the clock to clear the area and ensure the structural integrity of the boat.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve been really lucky that from the minute the incident happened, we’ve developed a relationship with the guys who actually live on the island here,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve employed the workforce that already exists out here, and without it we couldn\u2019t have done the job, full stop. There’s probably a work force of 10 guys.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u201cThey’ve been standing knee deep in water with waves hitting them all day, they’ve been carrying oxygen bottles for us to be able to cut the keel off, they’ve been helping us re-anchor the boat otherwise things would start moving across the reef.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey’re fantastic.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Pure relief flavours his words. This is a major step, complete. And it\u2019s been an incredibly charged emotional rollercoaster for the pair of old friends, Coxy and Nico.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think when we initially motored back out there a couple of days ago, there were butterflies in the tummy. For me it was going into the unknown.<\/p>\n

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\u201cFortunately you\u2019re so involved in this that your mindset is on really wanting to get this done, and do it right. We came here hoping to be able to get the boat off the reef and hopefully be able to bring the boat back, so that nervousness kind of subsided with focus.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The next step? \u201cWell, it’s now a 28 hour motor to get back to Mauritius,\u201d says Coxy. From there, they\u2019ll transport the boat to Malaysia and then to a destination yet to be confirmed in Europe.<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe’re just getting everything tidied up tonight and leave probably about 3am in the morning.\u201d<\/p>\n

And what about looking a little further ahead? Well, Coxy is still cautious \u2013 but hopeful.<\/p>\n

\u201cA week ago the light at the end of the tunnel was getting smaller and smaller, but what we\u2019ve been able to retrieve off the reef is substantial.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>He pauses. \u201cI’m not going to say it’s great by any means, but it’s the first stepping stone, and it’s enough to shine a light and to work hard to put things back into place. \u201c<\/p>\n

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Off the rocks Text by Jonno Turner Photos by Shane Smart Shane Smart\/Volvo Ocean Race \u00a0MORE\u00a022 DECEMBER 2014, 08:12 UTC SHARE\u00a0 \u201cNico’s out over the other side of the reef now, giving it the once over, making sure there’s nothing left behind.\u201dThe Aussie voice crackling through the Inmarsat iSat phone is that of Team Vestas … Continue reading HIGHER AND DRYER, TEAM VESTAS<\/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":[2179,43,486,333,1609],"tags":[2214,2177],"class_list":["post-9431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chris-nicholson-volvo-ocean-race","category-ocean-racing","category-offshore-sailing","category-volvo-ocean-race","category-volvo-ocean-racing","tag-salvage","tag-team-vestas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9431","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=9431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9432,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9431\/revisions\/9432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stephenlirakis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}